


I am the Cat Who Walks by Himself

by GreywolftheWanderer



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, First Time, Humor, M/M, Shifters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-25 21:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4976431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreywolftheWanderer/pseuds/GreywolftheWanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's been a snow leopard Shifter all his life, and in the Air Force for most of it.  Rodney was born with the Shifter genes, but they never worked.  Then one day he got zapped by yet another damned Ancient device -- and now all bets are off...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ...and all places are alike to me.

“I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.” – Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories

 

*******

The first time Col. Marshall Sumner, USMC, interacted with Major John Sheppard, USAF, it was as Alpha male putting down a subordinate, all front claws latched in John's tac vest, and a mouthful of extremely sharp-looking teeth not six inches away from John's eyes. John had hated submitting, but he knew he had no choice if he still wanted to go on this mission. And the more he'd thought it over, the more he realized he actually did want to go. So he'd turned his head away, displaying his throat, and let Sumner snarl in his ear and bite down on the tip, without a trace of physical resistance. But he couldn't stop some part of himself from thinking that one day he wanted to Shift and claw that snide smirk from the other man's face. 

Less than a week later, their eyes met again, over the Wraith Queen's shoulder, and Sumner, just a crumpled, white-haired shell of himself, had nodded for John to take the shot. That was how he'd come to sit in Sumner's place, as First among the military. Somehow he'd managed to hold on no matter what the Pegasus galaxy threw his way, but it hadn't been easy. It hadn't been easy at all.

John had joined the Air Force despite his father's wishes, and for one reason above all others: He had wanted – no, he'd _needed_ – to fly. He was born for that. And eventually, after hard work and training, that was the job he'd earned. 

Because John Sheppard needed to fly like most men needed to breathe, he liked choppers the best of all – and the Air Force _definitely_ had the coolest toys.

*******

“All right. Thank you, Carson. Keep me up-to-date on your findings, please.”

“Aye, Elizabeth, I will. Let me know as soon as ye get the rest of that file translated; I expect it'll be helpful once we can read it.”

And with that exchange, at long last, the meeting broke up. John made his escape with maximum speed and stealth, slinking quietly out the side door before anyone else could pester him. Why Elizabeth wanted him at these things was unfathomable to John; getting her to actually follow his advice was like pulling teeth. He hated meetings, always had. Nine out of ten meetings were a waste of time, and the tenth was a recap of the first nine. Even Rodney, famously impatient, didn't dislike meetings as much as John – but then, Rodney _liked_ to lecture captive audiences, so, yeah. 

A quick glance around the room had already showed him Rodney bearing down on Carson with a ferocious scowl, not something John wanted any part of. Cleared for launch, then. Good. He'd been bouncing his legs up and down and twitching his feet for a while now, a combination of boredom, and having missed his run last night due to having to break up a scuffle between two of the Marines and a couple of the mouthier civilians. Never his idea of a good time, much less at the end of the day. If it had just been between Marines, he could have smacked Lorne on the shoulder and told him to get it sorted. Add civilians to the mix, though, and everything went to hell in a bucket.

Once he got a safe distance away, John flowed through a few quick stretches and then headed for his favourite night-time route, starting out in an easy lope and gradually increasing his speed. Somewhere along the route he'd probably run into Ronon; the big fella had a ninja gift of slipping away quietly, as if he were cloaked like a Jumper; he was almost never present in meetings, except for maybe the first few minutes. How somebody six inches taller than him and at least 30% wider managed to sneak away so softly both pissed John off and filled him with grudging envy and respect.

Zelenka had helped him escape a few times, when both of them had hit the breaking point and realized they couldn't stand one more droning, self-important, yet so-very-pointless complaint by Kavanagh. He and Zelenka had developed a pretty unlikely friendship, given their respective Other Sides, but it worked. The Czech was also a shifter, but his Other Side was a deer, where John's was a snow leopard. But both men had to Rodney-wrangle at times, which led to a certain amount of shared understanding.

During tonight's meeting, though, Zelenka had been absent, off on a date with one of the anthropologists. Leelu something-or-other, an energetic little red-headed woman who was fluent in Czech. John couldn't begrudge him, either; the man had been pulling double-duty for days, ever since Rodney's most recent lab accident.

It hadn't been too bad, as Rodney-mishaps went. No cardiac arrest this time, no permanently-stuck-on ancient peripheral device. Just a bright blue beam of light, spiraling around him, then unwrapping in a vaguely familiar way, followed by what Rodney insisted to this day had been a simple manly loss of consciousness. Carson had grinned and called it a faint, and the battle had been raging between them ever since. He'd only cleared Rodney to return to the labs earlier that day, and his insistence on repeated medical tests had the famous McKay temper at a full, rolling boil.

It would have been pretty funny, if it wasn't such a giant pain in John's ass.

Tonight's meeting had been two-purposed; to discuss their current state of knowledge about the device, which was negligible, and to plan for tomorrow's excursion to P3X-293, in hopes of trading for supplies of some promising new foods the Athosians had told them about.

Carson had dutifully brought them up to date on his results so far, which weren't much. Rodney had gotten noticeably grumpier over the last two weeks. He'd reported that his skin was itching, all over, but Carson had found no erythema or rash except where he'd scratched too hard, and no underlying rash or elevated histamine levels. Sensors showed that Rodney's body temperature was very slowly rising; still following the normal ups and downs, but a couple tenths of a degree warmer now, right across the board. But Rodney denied feeling either fever or chills. He'd been even hungrier than usual, but he hadn't put on any weight, though he was eating nearly double his already-prodigious normal intake. He was complaining of back pain, but then, Carson had joked, Rodney _always_ complained of back pain. That crack had gotten him the patented McKay Death Glare, but Carson hadn't even noticed, absorbed by his data. Rodney's metabolic panel showed a markedly higher metabolic rate, likewise continuing to rise, but the Ancient body scanner had emphatically ruled out any infection or malignancies. Liver enzymes were elevated, but not dangerously so, his blood counts and chemistry were stable so far, and kidney function was improving, not degrading as Carson had more than half expected it to. At the end of his presentation Elizabeth had asked Carson for his conclusions, and the doctor had been forced to admit that as of yet, he didn't have any. 

The only other change he had found was a pattern of peculiar discolouration spreading slowly across Rodney's skin – a scattering of fine golden lines, lying parallel to one another, on the surface of the skin. It had started across his shoulders and was now spreading down his arms, across the backs of his hands and up the back of his neck, disappearing into his hair. They didn't raise the surface of the skin, rather they seemed to be part of its structure – but one that had never been there before. They glittered as though they were made of pure metallic gold, but the scanner insisted they were modified keratin, not much different from the skin in which they lay.

John had been worrying about this ever since it happened, but watching Carson's face as he spoke was reassuring; the Scotsman had been gleefully intent on new knowledge, not sweating over the fate of his friend.

Having finished his warm-up, John began to put on some speed as he headed into the first big loop of his run, consciously pushing his current worries to the back of his mind. No way was he going to spend tonight the way he'd spent last night – tense, grouchy, and too damned wired to sleep.

*******

“Rodney, I've already told ye, I dinna _know_ yet! I've put yer latest samples into the analyzer, but I dinna expect any results until the morning. Now there's an end of it! I'm going to get some sleep, and if ye've an ounce of sense, ye'll go and do likewise. Otherwise that 0730 rendezvous in the Gateroom is going to be even more gruesome than usual. I never should have let Elizabeth talk me into clearing you for off-world yet, and that's a fact. Any number of things could go wrong out there, and me with nowt but a field-kit to handle them. Honestly, Rodney--”

Rodney held up one hand, palm outwards. “Ah-t-t-t-t, now just stop, Carson. I have to go along; Elizabeth found a mention in the Ancients' database of some very interesting technology that she thinks might still be on this world. Besides, so far all that's happened is I have more energy than I did before. So, made of win! You're going to be there with us, so calm down before you have a stroke.”

“You're a dreadful bully, Rodney McKay, has no-one ever told ye that?”

Rodney snorted disdainfully, hopefully concealing the jolt that ran down his spine at those words. True, it wasn't the first time someone had said such a thing to him – but it would never be less of a shock. Truth be told, Rodney had been bullied far more than bullier in his life, especially as a child.

“Other than you?” he snarked. “No. Anyway, that's enough for me. Places to go, things to do, leaving now!!” And without further ado he turned and trotted off toward his lab. He wasn't even faintly sleepy yet, and he got a lot of his best thinking done in the quiet hours when the other scientists were out of his hair. Minions were all very well and good, but they could also be insanely annoying.

But he couldn't completely control his thoughts, as they drifted back in contemplation. The whole time he spent getting organized, brewing more coffee and wiping off the whiteboard next to his desk, he was remembering how it used to be...

Rodney was diagnosed as a carrier at birth, but had never been able to Shift. He had no idea _what_ he would become if he could. He'd never even had a Shifted dream. He'd pretended all his life to be content with it, but really, it was a source of deep grief and endless frustration. 

When he and Jeannie were little, whenever their parents' bickering got to be just too damned much, Jeannie would shift into her Other Side, a small brown bear, Rodney would climb onto her suddenly-broad back, and they would take off into the woods and ramble until sunset was almost upon them. Only out there was he free of the frustration and sadness surrounding his parents, the incessant never-ending spinning of his thoughts, and the feeling of being caught in a strait-jacket with no way out. Out in the woods with Jeannie he'd been able to relax and just be. The equations would come to him and he could concentrate, in a way he could no longer do at home. 

He was ten years old the first time he solved one of the Millennium Problems, and twelve when he built a fully accurate model of an atomic bomb – in his family's basement. The CIA had been drooling over him, but his parents were furious.

When Rodney was thirteen he'd graduated high school, enrolled in university, and become an Emancipated Minor. It was either leave that house, or kill himself. His only regret was that the court wouldn't allow him to take Jeannie with him. 

They hadn't seen each other again for almost five years, and then it had been at their parents' funeral. And that had only happened because Jeannie, two years younger and a foot shorter than him, had dug in her heels and refused to take no for an answer.

Of all his differing regrets, that was one of the sharpest. Being in a different galaxy with a bunch of lifesucking alien vampires had a way of focusing the mind. Even though Jeannie had dropped out of her degree program to marry an _English major_ , of all the preposterous choices, Rodney still regretted not contacting her before the Atlantis expedition left Earth. They were one another's only surviving kin; it wasn't right, the way he'd snuck off without so much as a telephone call. 

However, the coffeepot was burbling now, and he hastened to pour himself a cup, inhaling deeply that most magnificent of scents and sighing contentedly. Then he swallowed, sighed happily, grabbed a fresh Dry-Erase marker and got to work.


	2. Onward Thru the Fog...

John cursed and ducked behind the rocks. He had his fingers firmly laced into the back of Rodney's tac vest, and he was dragging the semi-conscious scientist along with him. Time to bug the fuck _out_ of here. Just behind him, Ronon popped up, fired a couple of shots, and ducked down again. Just ahead, Teyla was signing that the way was clear.

Ho hum, just another shitty day in Pegasus.

For once, it hadn't been Rodney that caused the problem, but rather, one of their would-be hosts who had slipped and said or done the wrong thing. John wasn't even sure quite what it had been – all he knew was, one minute everything had been fine, and the next one of the natives had shot one of the other natives, and John and his team were dodging rocks and arrows, with the occasional spear thrown in for variety's sake. The old guy had started hollering, something about demons, and hellfire, and man, if John had wanted to listen to this kind of crap he could have stayed on Earth and done it for free. You'd think a species that spanned most of two galaxies could show a little originality once in a while...

It was official. He'd been spending way too much time around Rodney McKay. He was doomed. 

Ronon just laughed. “You know you just said that out loud, right?” Then he reached out and grabbed Rodney's other shoulder. “Let's get out of here, before one of these idiots actually learns to shoot.”

*******

“So John, was there any shiny new technology there?” Elizabeth looked up hopefully, fingers still tapping away at her laptop.

“Not so much, no. They have a lot of churches, though, and a whole bunch of priests. And people who say they hear angels giving commands.”

“Sounds like a pleasant afternoon.” The two of them exchanged eye-rolls.

“Yeah, not so much of that, either.” John scowled, then slowly got up, fighting off a yawn. It had been a long and fairly unpleasant day. “I think we can just cross _that _world off the list.”__

__“All right. We'll meet in the conference room tomorrow at 0730, to decide which world to visit next.”_ _

__*******_ _

__“Okay, Rodney, you must pay up, yes? I was right, and you were wrong. No ZPM on P7A-701.”_ _

__Rodney's eyebrows drew together in a ferocious scowl, but Zelenka was unimpressed. He just pushed his glasses higher on his nose and stood his ground silently, one hand held palm-upwards in front of Rodney. The two of them exchanged glares for a moment, then Rodney sighed, grabbed one of his treasured chocolate Power Bars, and dropped it into Zelenka's hand._ _

__“ _Thank_ you!” Radek said in that irritating sing-song tone of victory, which of course was twice as irritating for the knowledge that Rodney himself did the same exact thing when _he_ won one of their bets. Grumbling under his breath, he bent over his laptop again. The Ancient database was as badly disorganized as Area 51's, which was saying something given that half the people there didn't want the other half aware of their doings, and three different federal agencies, besides the Department of Defense, all claimed it as their own. _ _

__It was a wonder the Ancients had ever gotten anything done, if this was how they'd run the place._ _

__Even so, there were still four more “Possible ZPM” Gate addresses on that slip of paper Old Elizabeth had given them. Rodney winced, thinking of her that way. He wasn't sure which creeped him out more – the idea of living through most of that long, long time asleep, or the idea of watching everyone else drown as nothing they'd tried had worked and the shield had finally failed, killing them all. Really, both ideas were equally creepy. If not for Janus and his willingness to break the Ancients' rules..._ _

__A shudder crept down his back, when he noticed the backs of his hands. Bad enough the weird gold lines were visible all the way down to his knuckles, but now they were _itching_ and all he wanted to do was get a wire brush and give them a damned good scratching, which– No. Just, no. He needed his hands, dammit. It had been almost three weeks now, and Carson was no closer to solving the mystery. For himself, while in theory Rodney was all about shiny new tech, this was a little more up close and personal than he really cared to get._ _

__About then a crash of glass and stream of multilingual cursing from the lab next door diverted him, and he was forced to set it aside for some other, hopefully less-busy time. Yeah, right. Because that was going to happen._ _

__“Kavanagh, what were you trying to do? Even a flea-brain like you should have known better than to hook that up to this power supply. Seriously, whatever you're using instead of brains – you paid too much!” Rodney and Zelenka rolled their eyes at one another. When he got wound up enough, Kavanagh flounced like a sulky schoolgirl, complete with lots of totally emo hair-flipping. It was far too entertaining, really._ _

__“You have no right to talk to me that way!” Damn, even the man's voice grated on the nerves._ _

__“Oh yeah? Watch me. And try for once, to endanger your own life instead of all of ours. Kill yourself on your own time with my blessing, Dr. Kavanagh, but keep your bumbling incompetence _out of my lab!_ ” _ _

__*******_ _

__SGA-1 came trotting through the Gate bearing gifts – and colourful flower garlands, and face paint... and not a hell of a lot more. All four members of Atlantis' First Contact Team wore their skivvies, while behind them trundled a small wooden cart pulled by something kind of like a goat. Piled up in the cart were their uniforms, weapons, a sizable cache of assorted Ancient crystals – and _coffee!_ Elizabeth had been standing near the Gate, talking to Major Lorne, when the team dialed in, and the scent of the beans was unmistakable. The demented grin on Rodney's face was the clincher – if Elizabeth was any judge, he was jacked up on at least three double espressos._ _

__Not that she was tempted to judge. Any diplomat soon learned the value of a strong pot of coffee. Besides, it had been a while since their supply ran out, and the Athosian roasted tea, while better than nothing, really didn't do the job. Inhaling ecstatically, she trotted over to where Carson was making a fuss over the goat and cart..._ _

__And stopped cold as Rodney walked toward her, awkwardly clutching his clothes under one arm and his laptop under the other – and the light pouring in through the Ancient stained glass turned his shoulders into glittering wonder, painting him with brushed gold for a moment, until he walked back into the shadow. Elizabeth's gasp escaped her control, and she saw Rodney wince, each knowing the other had seen. She didn't say anything, just gestured toward her office and left. Once Medical cleared them and they got clean, she knew they'd be back._ _

__But what was happening to Rodney? There was a lot more gold on his skin than she had realized was there. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't seen him in his short-sleeved shirts for a while. Now she knew why. And they still didn't know what it was really doing to him – but here came the man she needed to talk to._ _

__“Carson? Have you got a minute?” She trotted up the stairs to her office, knowing Carson was following without having to look._ _

__“Aye, Elizabeth. What can I do for ye?”_ _

__“Anything new on Rodney?”_ _

__Carson shook his head ruefully. “No, not really. I can tell that part of what is happening is related to the Shifter genes Rodney's had all along, but I've not figured out yet what it's doing. I've asked him if he knows, but he hasnae got a clue – which is irritating him, as ye might imagine. Our Rodney's not the most patient man as ever walked the earth.”_ _

__“Now _there's_ a true thing.”_ _

__*******_ _

__John thought the water off and sighed happily, glad to have the remaining flower nectar, face paint, and scented oils washed off. He'd washed up in Medical a while ago, but it wasn't the same thing, just enough to hold until they'd seen Elizabeth. He wasn't much for any kind of cologne at the best of times; a couple of drops of Old Spice, at most, and John was good to go. But he'd smiled and accepted it anyway, thinking it was little enough to gain this particular alliance. These people needed medicines and doctors, while they had coffee and all kinds of fruit to trade. Give Elizabeth due credit, she'd been almost as happy over the coffee as John and Rodney. Parrish of Botany had always said there might be coffee on some of the Pegasus worlds. It made sense; for damned sure, half the worlds they Gated to looked for all the world like the parkland around Vancouver/Victoria. But until today, none of the Gate Teams had found any._ _

__In fact, the planet had reminded him a lot of Hawai'i. _Huh. I wonder if they have good surf?_ If only there were more of this kind of trade, and less of the Genii kind, John would be a happy man. Okay, a slightly less grouchy man. _Whatever.__ _

__Still. _Coffee!_ Every now and then the Good Guys won one. He scrubbed his hair dry with one last swipe of the towel, then happily got dressed in clothes that didn't smell like rosewater – _or_ goats! He hung his towel up carefully, having a horror, like most field soldiers, of mold or mildew infesting his kit. It was the stupid little shit that would get you in trouble every time. Couldn't be too careful._ _

__Then it was time for his favourite part of the evening, his run. Clean, stretched, and starting to finally relax, he loped off into the night._ _

__About ten minutes in, Ronon came up beside him. Neither of them was working hard yet, they were just easing into their pace. This was their regular habit; they probably did this together at least three or four nights, most weeks._ _

__Rodney had just winced the night they'd invited him, sneering something about a pack of Neanderthals, and marched off, still grumbling under his breath, while John and Ronon laughed till they damn near cried. No problem. This was John's way of relaxing and letting his mind work things out, which for Rodney usually involved at least two laptops, copious amounts of both sugar and caffeine, and someone to bitch at._ _

__The two of them had completed one circuit and were well into the second when Ronon waved for a break. There was a bench and a small balcony. John cocked an eyebrow at him, waiting._ _

__“Listen, John – I remembered something, from when I was still on Sateda. There were all kinds of weird stories about the Ancestors, about some of the things they could do. I was watching Rodney this afternoon, while they were painting his face and weaving flowers into his hair. Have you noticed that there are silver and copper threads now, and across his shoulders and the back of his neck he just _glitters_. My old gaffer, he told us about this when we were first learning to Change._ _

__“On Sateda we remembered more than a lot of the worlds here did. We knew that the Ancestors weren't gods or spirits. Really, they were a lot like us; some of them could change shape, or call flames, or make the earth tremble... Your people have some of these same stories, I think.”_ _

__John nodded. “Yeah. Because of guys like me, for one thing.” He grinned, and Ronon grinned back, each showing just a little bit of fang and laughing about it._ _

__“Yeah, that's part of it. But there were some kinds of Changers that weren't healthy to be around at all. One my gaffer talked about, he called Fire Bird. And it sure sounded like how Rodney is starting to look. He's been keeping his arms covered lately, and now I understand why.”_ _

__“He's not thrilled about any of it, true. But you have to admit, Rodney steps up when it's needed. He might be scared, but he steps up anyway.” If he lived to be a hundred, John didn't think he'd ever forget that moment when the shadow-creature had flowed away through the Gate, leaving Rodney motionless on the floor behind it, like some kind of fucked-up Pegasus galaxy version of road-kill. A shudder ran down his back just thinking about it, though he preferred not to think too closely about why._ _

__Ronon nodded, serious for once. “Yeah, he does. But he might need some help with this one, John.”_ _

__“What's happening to him? What can we do?”_ _

__“He needs to have a fire extinguisher in his quarters, for a start. Might be safer if someone stayed there with him, in case it got out while he was sleeping.” Ronon frowned. “I dunno, I just think – he's gonna need us. And we oughtta talk to Rodney himself before either of us goes to Carson or Elizabeth. We're both Changers; maybe we can keep him from totally freaking out.”_ _

__“We can try... All right. Race you to the Mess Hall. If he isn't there we look further afield.”_ _

__“You're on! Hey, we can score some pudding as a sacrificial offering.”_ _

__Damn. John grimaced and ran faster. For a big guy, Ronon could haul _serious_ ass when he wanted to._ _


	3. All This and Modesty too!

Rodney was running. It was dark, and he didn't recognize his surroundings. His feet were bare, the cold ground gritty and unpleasant between his toes. The thin cotton of his pajamas gave next to no shelter from the cold, but at the same time, anything heavier would have smothered him. 

He'd tried, too many times. He knew.

So he ran, from something that was chasing him. What it was, he wasn't certain; he hadn't exactly seen it in a bright, steady light. Just flickers of torchlight, glittering on sleek, shiny wetness, a slip of wavering bluish moonlight seen reflecting for only a second, then gone. The soft slithering, just above the threshold of audibility. Subtly layered clickings and rustlings; the glint of what might be a tooth, a claw – or something worse. He could smell it, a fetid fishy carrion reek that stuck in his throat and coated his mouth and nose. Like roadkill, only worse. It was fast, apparently untiring, and almost completely silent. And Rodney had been running for– he wasn't even sure how long. Not anymore.

He'd had hope for a while, early on. He'd come a long way from the physically soft, almost flabby physicist who'd stepped through the Gate into neverending strife and chaos just over two years ago. A seasoned veteran now of many an offworld trip turned spectacular Pegasus-style clusterfuck, Rodney could haul ass with the best of them.

But that was then. Now, his feet were throbbing, his back was killing him, his left ankle was about ready to crap out, and there was a deep, aching heat gathering in his chest. With every rasping breath he could feel his strength ebbing, his ribs outlined in bright, burning pain. The end was inevitable, really. Stupid to keep running.

True. He kept going anyway. _Huh. Sheppard must be rubbing off on me_. And wasn't that a horrifying thought! Next thing you know, he'd be watching football – and American football at that. He shook his head in annoyance, and tried for an extra bit of speed.

Then disaster – a smooth, flat stone surface, the barest of cracks, and his feet crossed up and he went down like a sack of potatoes. His pursuer shifted and flowed, in a way nothing with a skeleton ever had or could– 

–and he was jolted awake, to the familiar sights of his own quarters and the worried faces of John and Ronon.

“Rodney? Hey, are you okay?”

Rodney shook his head, no. He took great, shuddering breaths as waves of heat and dull, prickling cold chased themselves through his body. His skin twitched; the itch across his shoulders was suddenly intense, shot through with white-hot flashes of pain. He felt as if his skin were crawling, his shirt full of ants... holy crap there were _bugs_ all over his skin! He tried to pull his shirt off and somehow his fingers got tangled, as if he'd never used buttons before, or as if he were catastrophically drunk, or– No. This wasn't Siberia. He'd have recognized Siberia. Damn! He could barely restrain himself from clawing at his own skin, using something, hell, _anything_ , to assuage that fucking itching!

“John? Ronon?” His voice rose, quavering. “Um, I think I'm in trouble here...”

Big, warm hands grasped him, both pushing and supporting him, so even though his own legs threatened to buckle under him, he kept moving. 

“The shower! Sheppard, turn the shower on, open it up full – and hurry!” Ronon's voice, beside his ear, and now he began to realize it had been a dream, that creature wasn't here. It never had been.

So why didn't that help, why wasn't he feeling better? He could hardly catch his breath, and the roaring in his ears was getting louder, not softer. Rodney gritted his teeth and tried to hold on, to keep awareness, keep control. That was very important, he had to keep _control._ But wave after wave of darkness washed over his mind, taking a little bit of him away on every withdrawal. He could hardly feel his body, much less the ground beneath his feet or the touch of John's hands. His eyes started to roll up in his head... 

– and John _ran_ , and the city read his thoughts, turning on the lights, the water, the blessedly cool air. Rodney was limp in their hands, now; Ronon and John lifted him easily into the shower. He shuddered and turned his head into the streaming water, eyes closed, water running all over his face, his hands, his chest... and Ronon's eyes got real wide. Silently, he pointed to the skin of Rodney's back, revealed when he'd torn at the fabric and started hollering about bugs.

At first John didn't see it. True, there were more of the golden threads than ever before, and mixed in amongst them, in swoops and patterns, delicate threads of silver and copper. It reminded John of some of the feather patterns he'd seen on pheasants, or Chinese ducks... And then he blinked and his brain refocused somehow, and he saw – all the tips of the threads were standing out from Rodney's skin and waving in unison, as a wheat field moves in a springtime breeze – only the water wasn't flattening them down the way it would have done to regular hairs. And in spite of the cool water, John was feeling seriously overheated right now, and how weird was that?

“Rodney? Talk to me here, man. You okay?” This was getting seriously freaky – and for a guy like John, who ran the night on four furred paws and fought _space vampires_ for a living, that was saying something. 

There was a flash of actinic blue light, and suddenly the bathroom reeked of scorched hair and ozone, Ronon was batting at sparks in his dreds, and John knew if he'd been inhaling a moment ago he'd be hating life about now. “Fuck, what the hell was that?” Which of course was when Rodney's knees finally folded for real, and the three of them crashed to the floor of the shower. John gave his elbow a vicious crack, but managed to keep Rodney's skull from doing likewise. A good thing, too, because the guy himself was out for the count, slumped bonelessly across John's lap – and now all the weird little hairs or whatever they were lay flat again, not moving even when Ronon brushed his hand across the lie of them.

“That's weird. It's like they're gone, but I can still see them right there. Just can't feel them.” Even the normally unflappable Ronon was looking a bit peakéd, now.

“Wow. Did that just happen?” John verified for himself that Rodney's skin was smooth to the touch. Glancing around, it was only then he saw the scorch marks on the metal wall panels. “Ronon. Check it out – you weren't kidding about the fire extinguishers, were you.”

“Nope. My gaffer wouldn't have known a joke if it bit him on the ass. He was dead serious when he told me those stories. Said I might have to deal with exactly this, some day.”

“I'm gonna have to tell Carson about it. It's one thing to worry about him smacking me in the face when his temper gets away – but torching the place?” John winced; he could just imagine the glare he was going to get for this once Rodney woke up, but he didn't have a choice, not now. Like it or not, as military commander he was responsible for the safety of everyone in Atlantis, _including_ Rodney.

“Hey. Let me ask Teyla – maybe there's some nice rocky place on the mainland we could go camp on for a few days, just while Rodney gets a grip on this. Once he figures out how to control it...”

“Yeah, that could work. All right. Help me get him out of this shower, then you talk to her and I'll tackle Carson and Elizabeth.” John shook his head. How was this even his life? Still – Rodney would have done the same for him – griping nonstop, yeah, but helping anyway. Hell, neither of them was even sure any more who'd saved whose life more often. Life in Pegasus...

*******

Carson insisted on moving Rodney to an isolation room and stripping most of the flammables out of it. Once John saw him safe, he went to find Elizabeth. She was up top looking down, as he'd known she would be. Unease prickled along John's spine, to see the normally ebullient scientist lying still and pale. It just wasn't right. Not even close.

Elizabeth sighed. “So, the 'This is Pegasus' effect strikes again, huh?”

“Yeah, something like that.” Rueful glances exchanged, both of them turned to look down again. “Listen, Elizabeth – Ronon and me want to take Rodney over to the mainland for a couple of days, see if he can get a handle on this in a safer environment. I'd like to take Cadman along. She's Bonded to a Fire Elemental; it was done when she was a baby. Makes her the best Ordnance Tech Specialist on the city – and I think she might be able to help with this. Plus she deserves a break; she got stuck on the Swamp Mission from Hell last week, and she's the main reason we didn't bring back Sikari home in a bag.”

“Do you think he can do it?”

“My money's on Rodney, to win or lose. He handles everything else; can't see him crapping out over this. Mind you, the whining will be truly _epic_ , but...”

“Just make sure you bring plenty of coffee!”

“Oh _hell_ yeah. And chocolate. I take it we're on?”

“Go on, get out of here. Go ahead and take Rodney; he'll like that a lot better than staying in isolation. And Cadman, too. Sikari's annoying, but Radek says he's useful.” Personally Elizabeth thought Cadman was extremely sexy – but there was already someone else who'd caught her eye. Mama Weir hadn't raised her daughter to be greedy.

John sketched off a salute. “All right! See you in a few days. Holler if you need us before we get back.” Feeling considerably relieved, he headed for the isolation room. He was pretty sure he'd seen Rodney starting to move, and it didn't usually take him long to rouse once he started. And how fucked up was _that_ , that all of them knew one another's tolerances for stunners?

He'd have to stop by the infirmary too, get supplies from Carson, just in case. He already kept Epi-Pens, glucose tablets, antihistamines and steroids in Jumper One, but this time he wanted some extra kit. Couldn't hurt, might help...

*******

Was it John's imagination, or was Atlantis a little more eager to please these last few days? If he didn't know better he'd say she felt _embarrassed_ – but that was ridiculous, wasn't it? Except this was Pegasus; he'd run across much stranger things than that. 

He glanced around – good, no-one watching – and put one palm flat against the wall-panel. _Hey, you couldn't know he'd grab that particular device, out of everything else in that room_. And be damned if he didn't feel as if she... appreciated that.

Uh huh. Just the same, he wasn't gonna say anything to anyone else about it, not right now. This last couple of weeks had pretty much used up his Weirdness tolerance; if the rest of this trip went off even halfway smoothly, he would be one very happy Lieutenant-Colonel.

Cadman and Ronon came in together, both laden with copious amounts of supplies, which they quickly got stowed. Once everyone was strapped in, John thought the moon-roof of the Jumper Bay open, and they were airborne. “Woo hooo!” yelled Cadman. “Road trip!”

Huh. Maybe he oughtta let the Marines get out a bit more... he turned his head, saw Rodney rolling his eyes, and laughed. What the hell, a couple of days away from his office and out under the sky, he could seriously deal. “All right, kids, settle down. The Jumper has now reached cruising altitude, feel free to unfasten your seat belts and move about the cabin.” Rodney snorted, and Cadman busted a gut. 

Ronon looked at all of them, puzzled yet again. These Tau'ri were good people, they'd helped him when he hadn't even a copper piece to bargain for help – but they were also very, very strange at times. And this was one of those times.

He only wished his gaffer could have lived to see them. To see Rodney, to see all of these Changers from a different galaxy. The man had been a ferocious old grump, but he would have got a real charge out of all this.

*******

It didn't take them long to set up camp. Hell this was the height of luxury – they were warm and dry and nobody was shooting at them or trying to fucking _eat_ them – didn't get much better'n this. Ronon had camped a lot rougher back in the day. Air mattresses might be silly luxuries as a rule – but they did make for comfortable beds, especially compared to the ground they were currently camped on.

Teyla had given John map coordinates to several Athosian hunting camps, and he'd picked this one because there was very little to burn here. It was a small, rock-strewn hollow about halfway up the face of a hill, with an isolated grove of trees along the windward edge, just enough to cut the nighttime breeze and give them afternoon shade. There was fresh water about ten minutes away on foot, and a proper fire-circle with an Athosian cooking grate and pot-hanging tripod already in place. 

“Damn, sir – this is the freaking Ritz compared to our usual luck!” Cadman had already explored the entire hollow and returned, to help with setting up camp.

John grinned. “Hey, we're entitled. You're entitled, for dragging Sikari back through the Gate.”

“Never Leave Your Geek – General O'Neill hammered that into all of us at the SGC. Half the time I want to smack Morris into the middle of next week, but I'm not about to let some fucking _Wraith_ sonofabitch lay a finger on any of our geeks. Sir!”

“At ease, Cadman. The sentiment is appreciated, don't get me wrong, but I'm not expecting spit and polish on this trip. The main reason I wanted you along was, I'm hoping you'll be able to help Rodney settle into his... abilities. Hoping maybe Agni will be willing to help...”

“Be happy to! And Rodney can't hurt me, either – Agni won't let him. Besides,” she looked sideways at John, “I want to see if I can teach him Ordnance work. There's only four of us Fire-workers in the whole City right now; any extra firepower might come in very handy some time. And I know he likes to blow shit up. Maybe not quite as much as I do, not yet – but I've got my hopes for young Padawan Rodney.”

“Look out, universe. We might be creating a monster here.” But John's expression gave the lie to those words. Laura grinned. This was shaping up to be one very interesting shore leave indeed. Even if it was only half leave, the other half was Fire-work, so again, made of win. 

Deep inside, Agni flared happily, eager to begin. Agni liked blowing shit up even better than she did, and that was saying something. This was sounding more and more like fun.

Fortunately for all the mortals, Agni liked playing at being a cooking fire too – because everyone knew the Colonel couldn't cook, and Rodney always got distracted and let shit burn. And Ronon was no fool – he could roast a fish on a stick as well as anyone, but if someone else was willing to cook actual food, well hell, that was different. His contribution was to drag a bunch of wood back to camp and bust it up, giving Agni something to eat, if heesh wanted to.

Now if only they could get Rodney to eat something besides Power Bars and MREs...


	4. Some People Call Me the Space Cowboy...

Lieutenant Laura Cadman was first and foremost one _damn_ proud United States Marine. She was an Ordnance Tech Specialist, a Tau'ri, a charter member of the Atlantis Expedition – and she was a human Fire-worker, bonded at birth to the Fire Elemental who currently described heeshself in human words as Agni. Laura was strong, intelligent, and possessed of an innate grace that Rodney couldn't help but envy. His mind might be agile as all hell, but his body – not so much. Dexterous fingers did not translate into nimble feet, however loath he might be to admit it. On the other hand, he didn't have to worry about hurting her if he lost control for a moment, so, made of win...

Watching her now, as she once again demonstrated the first Fire-kata for him, was both impressive and very humbling. She wore only shorts and sports bra – it was a warm day, he could more easily follow her muscle-movements that way – and like all Marines, Laura had no body-shame of any kind. But he couldn't help also noticing the way the sun glistened on her skin, or the delicate lines of ink that curled around her wrists, spiraled along her arms, and blended into the rest of the ink on her shoulders and back... Every time she gathered Fire in her hand and tossed it into the air, her tats changed from their usual blue-black to brightly-gleaming gold, then faded through orange and red, and back to black again. He'd never really noticed that before; as a rule, he didn't pay a lot of attention to anyone or anything that wasn't work-related. Well, almost anyone. But Sheppard didn't count; they were on the same team. Other than that, Rodney never had enough time to even finish all the work he already had that needed finishing, much less deal with anything else.

Now, though, he could take time to notice. For once, there were no massive crises on Atlantis. All he had to do here was learn more about what he was becoming and how to handle that. He knew already that whatever his Shifter side had changed into after getting zapped by the Ancient device-du-jour, fire was definitely part of the picture. But so far his attempts to control it, or even make it manifest again, had been abject failures. His only proof that those abilities even existed was a series of pictures John had taken, showing obvious scorch marks in his shower stall, and how the metal paneling warped from extreme heat – marks Rodney didn't even remember making. But something was definitely different inside him now. It wasn't just the weird thready-looking things in his skin – his whole body felt different. If anything, his mind felt even sharper than before, but his nerves were jittery even for him and his concentration was shot to hell. He could definitely feel some kind of new sensory input, but he had no frame of reference by which to understand it.

Laura finished the kata and stood still for a moment, breathing deeply. Rodney felt even clumsier after watching; she made it into a dance, only one that used her whole body. He sighed. “Tell me again – what was it like for you, in the beginning?”

Laura grinned at him, tossed him a bottle of water, and ambled over to sit facing him, flowing bonelessly into Lotus position. “Stuck again, huh? Okay, here, take five and rehydrate, and I'll go over it again, my Padawan.” Rodney winced at the name, and Cadman just grinned. He was infamous on Atlantis for his dislike of even the original trilogy, much less the WTF second trilogy. Laura, on the other hand, came right out and bragged that she loved them for all the pretty, shiny eye-candy. Which eye-candy, of course, Rodney studiously pretended not to notice.

He had Sheppard to ogle, for fuck's sake. Pretty studio boys, against _John?_ Yeah, right.

Laura tapped him on the side of the head. “Pay attention, Rodney. No daydreaming, remember?” Rodney flinched, glaring at her. She laughed. “Okay, so, the main thing you have to remember is that I had one >em>hell of an unfair advantage relative to you – by the time I was old enough to worry about my abilities, Agni and me had already been growing into one another for four or five years. When I was a baby, the link was sensory only. Neither Agni nor I could do anything but feel one another. Well, Agni could have done more, but heesh has always been very careful; every time we've moved our link up a notch, it was at my insistence. You, on the other hand, got the whole damned thing at once, really.” She looked away for a moment, suddenly thoughtful. “Although, I don't think you've finished _becoming_ quite yet.” Rodney scowled even harder, at that. His tormentor just shrugged and made the World's Smallest Violin sign at him.

Then she relented. “That being said, yeah, I can remember what it was like. I was about four and a half years old, the first time I called the Fire and it actually came. We were camping up at the lake for the summer; no electrics up there, or propane. Mom was tending the woodstove, and grumbling because the wood was still kind of damp. And I thought about it, reached out with my mind, called it – and it came! It was only a spark, and it went out right away, just like yours did in your shower the other day – but it scared the living crap out of me. Followed, of course, by feeling _seriously_ fucking angry and confused. I already knew I was going to be a damned Fire-worker, so why was I feeling so scared? How come I couldn't call it again – nothing happened when I tried. And why did everything feel so _weird_ all of a sudden. That about cover it?”

Rodney shrugged, looking sullen. It galled him something fierce to admit it, but she was right. Creepily right, actually. He glared at his boots. “Something like that, yes.”

“Well, your brain _is_ getting an ass-load of new input. It'll take a while to understand it and make proper use of it. Hang on, I just thought of something.” She picked up Rodney's Life-Signs Detector. “Let me see, the filter I want is... ah. Here.” She handed it back to him. “Check this shit out – go ahead and scan me, then yourself, using this setting.”

Intrigued, boredom forgotten instantly now he had something more scientific to look at, Rodney did as she'd asked. The resulting scans were definitely different from any others he'd seen on this device – each of them showed up as a pulsing, vibrating, human-shaped network of luminous blue lines on a black background. And there was something awfully familiar about that pattern, if only he could remember what it was... Looking down again, he noticed that one of the shapes was obviously pulsing in phase, while the other was a lot more chaotic. “Okay, I'll bite – what is this?”

“This is what the Chinese call 'chi' and the West calls Kirlian photography – in physics terms, it's an energy circuit map of the body. A standardized version of this has been used in Chinese medicine for thousands of years; it's the diagram acupuncturists and others use to chart what treatments to do where. Modern medicine was totally skeptical about all of this, until someone managed to make some “electrical aura photographs” in a university lab – and in all the human specimens they photographed it was this exact same pattern that was photographed. It even persists for a while if you scan a recently dead corpse, and man, there's been some Big Fucking Names in physics having _vicious_ bitch-fights over that whole issue. Funny as hell if you ask me. 

“So when I'm teaching you meditation, or we're practicing the patterns of sequenced movements we call the Fire-katas, or when you practice the Dragon-breath – all of this is teaching your brain the tools it needs to use these new perceptions. It probably seems totally random to you, but it _will_ pay off down the road.” She finished the last of her water. “Tell ya what, mirror me in the first Fire-kata again and I'll call lunch. I smuggled one of the last cans of Easy Cheez and a box of crackers out of the kitchen.”

Now that was the best idea Rodney had heard all day. Rejuvenated by even the thought of food, especially some of his old favourite foods, he got to his feet and fell into the practice stance one more time. Lunch was afoot; there was no time to waste...

*******

“So, anything new to report?” John could hear in Elizabeth's voice that all was well on Atlantis; if not, her tone would have been higher and flatter, her phrasing more formal.

“Cadman says Rodney's making good progress. I must admit, I've been avoiding their practice sessions – Rodney's still pretty tetchy and I'm not volunteering to be a practice target. But I've got no reason to doubt her; she's a pro and I trust her judgement.” Next to himself, Cadman was the one he trusted the most with explosive ordnance – and if Ronon was right about Rodney, then that was a pretty good description of what John's favourite scientist was becoming. 

“All right. Tell Rodney Zelenka says hello. We'll call if anything goes wrong, otherwise you're cleared to stay where you are for now.”

“Okay. Talk to you again in two or three days, unless something comes up sooner than that. Tell Lorne to call me if he has any problems.” And that was that, Official Business dealt with.

Yeah, John could definitely get used to this. He closed and stowed his laptop, then wandered outside to watch the show some more, from a nice safe distance. Shirtless Rodney, glittering golden in the sun as he and Cadman danced – oh man, could he _ever_ deal.

*******

Night time, and Lantea's moons were shining brightly enough to see colours – at least, it would have been bright enough, if John had been running on two booted feet instead of four furred ones. As Leopard, he saw almost completely in shades of grey, but the wavelengths he saw weren't quite the same range as his human eyes could see. It lent everything an extra little sparkle, one of many reasons he loved running the night so much. Before he'd Shifted, the air had been dry, cool, scented faintly with conifers and grass and the fading tang of some kind of night-flowering vine. On four feet though, the air became a richly layered tapestry of scent, one that carried all kinds of stories for his nose to follow, should he choose it. Every strike of a paw against the ground released a fresh little burst of scent, and every one was subtly different.

He knew the theory of it; humans devoted most of their brains to processing visual information, but for felids it was different. Mostly that capacity got used for interpreting sounds instead, the better to hunt from ambush, but much of the rest was devoted to a sense of smell far sharper than a human's. All around him the night was alive, redolent of life and death. Here something small and furry crouched in a hole, terrified, there something else kept running, looking for larger prey or maybe, for a mate. Didn't matter to John. Some nights he hunted too, but tonight he merely circled their camp, both exploring and protecting. Nothing was going to bother his team tonight, not if John could help it. 

Though even Rodney couldn't be described anymore as defenseless, not really.

John'd had kind of a boring day; Cadman and Rodney had worked on drills all day, and John hadn't felt comfortable interrupting just because he was bored. He was actually kind of impressed at the effort Rodney was putting into this. Normally, anything that wasn't Ancient technology or his physics research pretty much failed to hold Rodney's attention. In honour of this, John had cut back some on the teasing. For now. Until he got too bored, or too irritated... Rodney was way too much fun to wind up, but John was trying to behave. 

So instead, he and Ronon had done some practicing of their own, policed the camp, brought in more firewood, and tried their hands at fishing in the nearby stream – without success, but then, at least half the point of fishing was to kill some time away from people inclined to boss you around. John had no less an authority on this than General Jack O'Neill himself.

 _Huh – I better not say that where Rodney can hear me..._ John huffed softly and let his tongue loll out in a snarky feline smirk as he ran.

He was pleasantly tired when he finally turned his paws toward camp again. In just a few minutes he could make out Ronon's silhouette against the slowly dying fire. As he trotted toward it, John let loose of his Shape and flowed easily from four feet to two.

Ronon grinned and tossed him his clothes, before standing and stretching languidly. By the time John got himself dressed the Satedan had already dropped his pants and begun to transform. His Other Side was – if John'd had to classify it he'd have called it a bear, more or less. Big, the same way Ronon was big on two feet. Shaggy brown fur with a longer ruff, darker fur in a mask around the eyes, lighter on his belly, down his spine, and along his tail – wow, _that_ was different. Shifted, Ronon had a tail that hung down almost to the ground, almost as mobile as a cat's but much shaggier. John liked his own tail better – but he wasn't about to say that. He just smirked and said nothing. A few seconds later the Ronon-bear ambled over and snuffed John's palm with a large cold – and wet! – nose. The two of them eyed one another, John grinned and nodded, and Ronon loped out into the night, moving very quietly for an animal that big.

John turned back toward the glowing coals, enjoying the contrast between the warmth on his hands and face, and the cool bite of the night air behind him. He always felt a little chilled when he first Shifted back to human form. Made sense; when he was Shifted his snow leopard body got overheated too easily, if he wasn't careful. One reason he'd liked Antarctica; it was too cold at night there even when he was Shifted, but in the daytime it was just about perfect for exploring on four paws. Plus most people there had left him the hell alone in either shape, which had suited John just fine, please and thankya.

A pile of blankets across the fire from him shifted and tumbled open, to reveal Cadman, yawning and rubbing her eyes with her knuckles. John had to grin when he noticed that even in sleep she carried at least three visible knives, and who knew how many others not visible. Must have been taking lessons from Ronon, heh.

“'Sup, Colonel?” Still-sleepy soldier stretched sinuously. Made for kind of a nice view.

“Nothing much. Nice out there tonight. Quiet here so far?”

“Yup.” She jerked a thumb toward Rodney's pup tent. Even in his relatively-deaf human form, John could hear the snoring. “Well, undisturbed, at least. Can't really call that quiet.”

John laughed. “Yeah, so true. That's all right. He plays with others a lot better when he gets his rest.”

Cadman snickered. “Trufax, dat.” She stood up and stretched, making her spine pop and crack. “Tell you the truth, I'm about slept out for now. I'll take the watch if you want to crash for a while.” Neither mentioned what both were thinking – they felt a lot more comfortable keeping the watch at night, no matter how safe the mainland was supposed to be.

John wagged a finger at her. “Never say crash to a pilot, Lieutenant. I'll take you up on the offer, though. I could do with some shuteye.” 

*******

Morning came early outdoors; sleeping late wasn't really possible with what sounded like every bird in the universe trying to sing one another offstage. Even his face mask didn't help, and Rodney swore to himself that next time they were camping anywhere, he was gonna bring earplugs – the kind they handed out with chainsaws... The Colonel would probably bitch him out for that, but Rodney didn't care. After all, genius here! His brain demanded he keep it busy as much as possible; it was rare for him to sleep more than four, or occasionally, six hours. Naps taken with nose in keyboard didn't count, of course. Work was different. When something major went on at work, he could easily – had, easily, more than once – work for two or three days straight, before finally crashing and sleeping the clock round. More than that, on the rare occasions he and Zelenka had been able to con stimulants out of Carson. They'd done some of their best brainstorming under threat of imminent death, getting wired as fuck and bouncing off the walls of the lab.

He hated to sleep this long, though. His back was a pure torment whenever he lay still for too long.

Sitting up and stretching his arms, he enjoyed a truly luxurious scratch, as much of his shoulders and upper arms as he could reach. He'd clipped his nails short back in Atlantis, on Carson's advice – so he didn't have to worry too much about injuring the skin. Man, what a wonderful feeling that was, as the everpresent itch subsided a little.

Time to get dressed and get breakfast. Which was funny in its own right, really. Normally Rodney was all about the carbs – donuts, pancakes, muffins, you name it. This morning he woke up craving bacon and eggs. Which of course, they'd run out of several months ago, at least the real ones. Iridanian karhula eggs were a weird kind of pink and orange instead of white and yellow – but they tasted okay. He'd had duck eggs before and those were almost as weird-looking. But damn, he missed bacon so fucking much...

If he ever got the chance to return to Earth for even a day or two, he was going to buy twenty kilos of bacon and use his personal item allowance to bring it home.

Huh. Home. How long had Atlantis been home? He puzzled over it for a while, without any luck, then got distracted by the smell of Spam cooking. Good enough; Spam was tasty – not to mention useful for shocking annoyingly vegetarian siblings, when the need arose.

After breakfast, John headed off to work on the Jumper for a while, while Ronon settled next to the firepit and began to methodically sharpen all of his blades, from his sword to the tiniest toadsticker secreted among his dreds. That left Rodney and Cadman to work on the Fire-katas some more.

Only this time, “I want you to try something. First, look at this.” And there was the same display she'd showed him before, only now his energies looked nearly as smooth as hers did. “Sweet. That's the Dragon-breath for you. Okay, now tell me, which are the main strikes from the first kata?”

Rodney had to think for a minute. “The Dragon and the Tiger?”

“Yup!! Here's what I want you to try. Do the first kata again, only this time I want you to try pushing a little flame out with both those blows. Face this way; now you don't have to sorry about hitting one of us because we're either behind you, or out of range.”

Hmm. That probably would work, at that. He definitely needed to add Cadman to the “Not Completely Useless” personnel file in his head.

All right. If he was going to do this, might as well do it now. Looking down, he saw that he had already dropped into Horse stance, one fist out and one curled close. He looked up and began the sequence again. When he got to the Dragon, he tried to push the fire out from his hand, but nothing happened. At the Tiger, there was a soft “pop” and he half-saw a brief flash of yellow-orange. He wobbled for a moment, surprised it had worked, then resumed the sequence and worked through it until he got to the end.

A cold can of beer was pressed into his hand. “Here you go – just the thing, it'll relax you and one won't do any harm. That was good! We'll have you chucking fireballs around in no time.”

Rodney wasn't totally sanguine about that, but be damned if he'd let fear mess this up. Not now. Atlantis needed him, and not locked up in the Isolation rooms, either.

Besides, if he didn't get back to work soon, one of the semi-trained monkeys the SGC had saddled him with might blow up his favourite lab.


	5. Close to the Edge

Elizabeth Weir crouched on the edge of the East Pier and quickly looked all around. No-one was watching; she had the pier to herself at the moment, which was just how she liked it. Quickly, before anyone could show up to drag her back to the office, she slipped into her Selkie form and dove gracefully into the water.

Lantea's oceans were warmer, on average, than Terra's. They were definitely warmer than those off the coast of Ireland, where her family had lived during her childhood. Just a few degrees, true – but it made that first few minutes in the water easier and more pleasant. After five minutes or so her body adjusted anyway, her temperature maintained by both the energy needed to keep swimming, and the subcutaneous layer of fat that all seals, shorter and sleeker than humans, carry under their skin. And oh, the feel of the water slipping past as she wove her way under and through it was amazing, like some combination of silk and warm butter. If she'd been male she'd have been nursing an enviable erection; as it was, well, it always gave her a bit of a ladyboner, if the truth be known.

She took a few minutes to chase down and snarf half a dozen pseudo-herring, then set off to the south, continuing her personal exploration of their immediate area's waters. If she was right, there should be a family of Flagisallus around here somewhere; according to the half-translated files she'd been working on lately, there was a cove not far south of here where the Ancients had observed the not-whales going to bear young. Presumably it was because the more sheltered waters there lacked some of the larger predators found in the deep – though for herself, Elizabeth would be very happy if she never met one of said predators. Anything that could scare a Flagisallus probably wouldn't even get two bites out of her own small form. 

Maybe she'd meet the not-whale Rodney had christened Sam again. The huge female had led her straight to Rodney's crash site last year, enabling Sheppard and Zelenka to rescue him in plenty of time. He hadn't even run out of Power bars yet when they'd landed beside the wrecked Jumper and extended their shields to surround it safely. Even so, the water inside the crashed Jumper was knee-deep when John actually found him. Every time she thought about it her blood ran cold – the Jumper had been badly damaged and leaking like a sieve. There was no telling how much longer he could have survived down there in the cold and dark, if Sam hadn't showed them where to look.

It was her hope to one day pick up the language research where the Ancients had left off, and communicate for real with the giants who shared their waters. She was convinced they were intelligent; it was just a matter of discovering how much.

She slapped the water with her tail-flippers, arching joyously into the air and crashing down with a great loud splashing. It felt so good to be out for a swim, nothing but the sounds of the sea and the cry of the not-gulls in her ears. It made for a lovely change of pace compared to the endless litany of complaints that she heard during her office hours – most of which could be described as nowt but whingeing, as her father would so memorably have named them. She'd dodged a bullet this afternoon – just as she slipped away down the hall, she'd noticed Kavanagh skulking outside her now-closed office. She was _definitely_ not in a Kavanagh mood this afternoon; not even close. The person on her mind today was definitely smarter than Kavanagh, and infinitely more pleasing to the eyes and the ears. Now if only she knew whether her regard was returned...

*******

Sheppard stood up too fast and banged his head on the edge of a shelf. _Dammit! Quit daydreaming and start working, you idiot!_ There actually were maintenance tasks he needed to complete aboard the Jumper today, and if he didn't get them done, Rodney was sure to smell a rat. And the last thing John needed at the moment was a Rodney McKay ass-chewing. He'd pop wood just as sure as anything and then all hell would undoubtedly break loose.

Oh, Rodney enjoyed hanging out with him, true. And the two of them were best friends, also true. But how long any of that would last if Rodney knew his true feelings – that was something John was afraid to even think about. Rodney was merciless when angered, with a mouth that could cut a giant Sequoia down to size, much less one slightly bedraggled Air Force colonel. That was why he was out here today, leaving Rodney and Cadman back at camp together, practicing. If he didn't watch them, he wouldn't get caught, and Rodney wouldn't kick John where it hurt the most.

It wasn't fair, but then, life usually wasn't. Bad enough he'd been nursing this crush, or whatever, for months now. Then Rodney had to turn into – well, whatever he was now, he could make some very pretty explosions, as Cadman taught him how to use the power Atlantis had awakened in him. Last night John had seen him throwing fireballs at the target she'd set up, and had to turn away in a big bad hurry when he pitched a tent in his pants. Something about the combination of Rodney and Fire just got John _all_ hot and bothered, in the most enjoyable yet torturous way, oh yes.

He was doomed. No two ways about it. Doomed. He sighed, then reached above his head to open the circuit-access panel. Now if only he could figure out how to safely mesh Terran stereo equipment with the Ancient circuitry aboard the Jumper. He'd always wanted to make a bombing run with “Ride of the Valkyries” or “Relayer” blasting away in the cockpit. Something about the right music that just got his nervous system amped and ready to go... Besides, it'd be worth it just to hear Rodney snark about him wasting his time on bells and whistles, heh. Winding up his favourite geek was just way the hell too much fun!

*******

“Rodney, you're not listening again. Now watch me and do what I do – Agni's getting annoyed now, and I do _not_ want to go there today.”

Rodney pouted. He was tired, and grouchier than usual this morning, even for him. Yesterday had been exhilarating. He'd found he could form and throw fireballs almost as well as Laura. They'd played catch for a while, throwing the same fireballs back and forth between them. But last night his sleep had been fragmented, full of nightmares and hot flashes that scared the hell out of him, half-expecting to wake up in a sleeping bag that was already on fire. It hadn't happened, but the sensations were nerve-wracking anyway, and all he wanted today was to hide in his favourite lab and let the pretty dancing numbers soothe his frazzled mind.

Wasn't happening, though. Elizabeth had told him and Laura both that she didn't want Rodney back on the city until he could maintain control as well as any of the other Shifters. The worst part about it was, he agreed. If it had been anyone else awakening as a Fire-caster, Rodney would have demanded they stay the hell away until their control was solid and dependable. But this morning, as the birds chirped and fluttered and he heard Ronon practicing his own moves in the background, Rodney wanted to lash out and really _torch_ something. _Anything_ , dammit. It was like having his skin poured full of fleas, or getting poison ivy from head to toe. He danced and fidgeted and jived and jumped, and none of it was _helping_ , not a bit...

“Rodney! Heads up, incoming!” He threw his hands up and wove a block before he even realized it; Laura's fireball hit his shield and bounced off, sizzling into the long grass and sending up a smouldering plume of scorched peat-fumes. Ugh. Just the smell he wanted this morning.

“Dude! What the fuck is the matter with you this morning? If I was a fuckin' Genii, you'd be _dead_ by now. Come on, man, you were doin' better than this on our second day here!” Cadman's voice grated, and he could almost _feel_ her aggravation jittering along his already-fried nerves.

“Well maybe if I'd gotten more than an hour of sleep I'd feel more like doing this shit!” he snarled as he spun around and marched off. “Fuck this! I'm going back to camp. I want more coffee, and I want everyone to just leave me the fuck _alone_ for a while!” He threw his hands up in the air, not even noticing the showers of sparks that flew from his fingertips. He wasn't in a mood to notice much of anything this morning, except for just how very pissed off he felt, and he noticed _that_ just fine.

Cadman shook her head, struggling not to snicker or even to grin. She'd been waiting for something like this for a couple of days now. Rodney was handling larger amounts of energy now; he'd played Fire-catch with her yesterday for almost an hour without ever “dropping the ball.” It was pretty impressive progress for a grown man who'd never possessed those powers in his life. But she remembered feeling just like him back in her teens, when she'd reached the same point in her development.

The problem was, the energy didn't always stay neatly where it was put, much less where it truly belonged. All the Fire-workers and lightning-throwers went through this at some point, becoming more and more irritable as the amount of overflow increased, irritating the body and all the original nerve-circuits worse than just about anything else. Most of them figured it out and found a way to channel and manage the flows safely. But a small fraction of Fire-benders couldn't handle it. Some of them burned up to ash and gone; some took dangerous backflows that injured them, and some snapped and torched their surroundings. Elizabeth had sent them off the city for a reason – as a fully-grown adult, Rodney could call Fire much more intensely than the average teenage beginner ever could, with correspondingly greater potential for harm.

She hung back for a while until he was nearly out of sight, then silently padded along behind him, keeping her distance, Agni helping her to track and monitor the furious boil of energies surrounding her newest recruit. If it were up to her, no matter what happened, she was not going to let Rodney be burdened with unnecessary guilt.

*******

Elizabeth had hardly been back in the office for an hour when the day went straight to hell.

AG2 had left first thing this morning on a trading mission, following up on some rumoured vegetables that sounded oh-so-tasty; anything that was different would be a help. Atlantis never went hungry anymore, but the food definitely got boring sometimes, especially during the cooler winter months when most of the Athosian fields lay fallow. So she'd sent Lorne and Parrish's team out to P7X-3R5, along with several Athosians that had visited that world before, carrying trade goods. Seemed like a good idea – trade tanned hides, medicines, and various other products of both the Athosians and the expedition, for root vegetables, fruit, and the Pegasus equivalent of honey. Carson had opined it was a waste of one of their best teams on a job that he called “a doddle, just a wee stroll in the park.” But Parrish had been itching to go and she was inclined to indulge him, after some of his homemade lotions, shampoos, and what-not appeared in their stores. Her hair was behaving itself for the first time since they got here, and she wasn't the only one delighted not to have to wait for the Daedalus to finally return to get herself clean.

Damn Carson anyway! He knew better than to say stupid shit like that! Talk about a jinx...

The only one who'd made it back through the gate was Anaan, the youngest of the Athosian Gate explorers, and he'd been filthy, wounded, and shaking like a leaf as he explained, Carson fussing around him all the while and trying to chivvy them to the infirmary.

“The Erussenoi were not there, not in control anymore. Eruess has been invaded; there are soldiers everywhere around the Gate.” He winced as Carson poured disinfectant over his shoulder, preparing to remove the arrow, but made no sound beyond a soft “Uh!” as it slid out and Carson put pressure on both sides of his shoulder.

“Hush laddie, ye dinna have to tell us all about it right now, do ye?” Anaan looked down at the neat white bandage now winding around his chest, and the ruins of his favourite shirt lying wherever Carson had dropped them after cutting it off him.

“Yes, I do. The enemies, they have captured two of my people and also Sergeant AuCoin, and they are threatening to kill them!” Beneath the smears of mud and blood his normally golden skin was sickly pale, and it was all he could do to remain upright.

Elizabeth cursed under her breath. “This is Pegasus” – yeah, well.

*******

“Colonel Sheppard, this is Weir. Do you read me?”

John cursed under his breath. If she'd called even five minutes later he could have pretended ignorance. But he was standing right next to the console; before he could talk himself out of it he'd already grabbed the radio and clicked “talk.”

“This is Sheppard. What's going on, Elizabeth?”

“We have a Gate team in trouble, Colonel. Parrish and Lorne's team, on P7X-3R5. We don't know exactly what went wrong, but at least three people are being held prisoner. So far no ransom demands, which makes me wonder if they're planning on selling our people to the Genii or maybe even the Wraith.” She glanced down at her laptop then met John's gaze again. “I hate to call you back in so soon, I'm sure you haven't finished the work you wanted to do – but we're going to need our people back, sooner rather than later.”

John sighed, running his fingers through his already disheveled hair and leaving it sticking up even crazier than before. “Yeah, okay. Give us a few minutes to break camp, and we'll be right there.” Elizabeth nodded and signed off.

“Fuck. Just what we needed. It's a _special_ day in the neighbourhood, yes, it is.” He slapped the laptop closed again and dropped it on his bedroll. Might as well go break the bad news.

*******

“What do we know about these assholes? Have any of our people been there before? Does anyone know the layout at all?” Rodney was hunched over his laptop, fingers blurred as they danced across the keys.

“Teyla's father used to go there to trade, I think – I dunno if she went there herself or not.” Ronon unfolded himself and started putting his knives away, even the still-unsharpened ones. In a matter of moments the only blades visible were his sword and one belt-knife. John had to admit he was kind of impressed. No stranger to hidden weapons himself, it was still amazing to watch Ronon at work sometimes.

“I think this was a First Contact for us. There were some Athosians along for the ride, but so far only Anaan has made it back to the city. Maybe he can give us some useful intel.” John and Cadman had just finished stowing the last of their borrowed ordnance in the back of the Jumper when the call came in. Huh. Maybe it'd come in handy anyway, if not in the way they'd first imagined. 

“All right, everyone – strap in, this is gonna be a little rough.” There was a storm between their camp and Atlantis; even flying over the top of it, some turbulence was to be expected.

“Oh wonderful, our very own re-enactment of the Vomit Comet,” Rodney snarked, then bent over his keyboard once more. John finished stowing the last bits of their camp, then sat down and took the controls.

“Fucking Pegasus, how many times do we have to cut a bitch before these assholes stop dicking us around?” Cadman plopped herself down in the back and snapped her safety harness on. One hand rested possessively on the case that held their last remaining surface-to-air launcher. That thing was her baby, and nobody better fuck with the baby, or Laura would _seriously_ fuck their shit up.

“If I knew that, I could cut to the chase and find something less frustrating to do.” John ran through a very quick preflight check, then thought the rear hatch closed and locked, and sent the Jumper straight upward, leaping right over the top of the intervening storm system.

“Oh come on, Sheppard. You know we're never gonna get _that_ lucky! On the other hand, if I remember rightly it's night on P7X-3R5 right now. We can probably sneak a UAV through the Gate and do a little spying. If we dial the Gate a couple of times first, doing nothing, we might be able to fool the bastards, make them think it's just another tease.”

“Good idea, McKay. Sneaky. I like it!” Ronon smiled, revealing what Rodney felt was an entirely excessive number of gleaming white teeth.

“Yeah, I kinda like that one, too.” John grinned, leaning sideways as he took the Jumper through a fast, tight turn. It was funny the way the brain refused to accept the reality of inertial dampeners; it never failed to make him smile, if only a little bit. “And then maybe we can fly a Jumper there. Hey Rodney, what's the nearest world with a Gate?”

“Nothing useful. Shortest trip I'm showing is three days in a Jumper.”

“Yeah, _that's_ not gonna happen. Okay, so we need a Plan B.”

“We haven't even had a Plan A yet, Sheppard.”

“So put that big brain of yours to work and make us one, Rawd-nee...” Sheppard drawled his name even slower than usual. Rodney gritted his teeth and went back to his typing. Honestly, soldiers! If it'd been anyone but John, he would've given them a good old-fashioned hot-foot and chased them the fuck away.

John, though – not so much. _Huh. How about that._


	6. Blood, Sweat and Tears

As soon as the Jumper cleared the clouds, Rodney cleared his throat, the tapping of keys momentarily silent. “Sheppard – take me with you. I won't do anything inside the Jumper, but you might need two of us. We don't know what's happening yet.”

“Huh.” The Jumper would fly herself for a minute or so. Sheppard turned in his seat, to catch Cadman's eye. “Well, _sifu_ Cadman? What say you?”

She frowned for a moment, then nodded. “I think he'll do. Might not want to invite us to High Tea at the Palace yet, but for this? Let's go, there are asses to be kicked!” 

Rodney snorted. “Not like any of us are real big on diplomacy anyway.” He waited for John to nod assent, then busied himself at the keyboard again.

*******

“So what do we know?” Sheppard paused, then shrugged and grabbed another box of grenades. You never knew what they'd come in handy for. Be prepared and all that happy-crappy. Behind him, Teyla and Ronon were gearing up, while Cadman grabbed both her kit and Rodney's. The scientist had volunteered to stay aboard the Jumper while they loaded up, just on general principles.

“I know damn good and well we wouldn't be back on the city this soon, if not for these assholes grabbing our people. Let's not borrow more trouble.” And with that he had returned to his computer, already muttering calculations under his breath.

Well, how about that? Talk about unexpected...

“We do not know very much yet,” Teyla murmured. “The people of P7X-3R5 call their world Eruess. I have traveled there before with my father, but I was only a child. They have a technology much like that of my own people, but they live in a series of caverns, instead of tents. I remember that their village was perhaps half a day's walk from the Ring of the Ancestors. It would not take long in a cloaked Jumper.”

John tapped his earpiece. “Elizabeth, any more information for us?”

Instead of Elizabeth, Amelia Banks answered him. “Should have something any minute, Colonel. We took Dr. McKay's advice and dialed the planet. Specialist Campbell chucked a grenade through, and we were able to sneak a UAV through it in the aftermath.”

“Nice one.” John was halfway back to Gate Operations already, the rest of his team in close pursuit. “What did you see?”

“Maybe a dozen hostiles, mostly sitting on their asses looking surprised. Bows and arrows and something like flintlocks, as far as we could see. No sign of the locals; I'd guess they're hiding or imprisoned, but we don't know for sure. It's full dark there right now; sunrise won't be for another three hours yet.”

“Works for me. Elizabeth? Do we have a go?” Ever since the clusterfuck with the Ancient nanovirus that turned out to be a Replicator weapon, John had been careful not to fuck with Atlantis' chain of command. For her part, Elizabeth had made a serious effort to understand his point of view. It was rare now for the two of them to clash, and this wasn't going to be one of those times.

“You have a go. Bring our people back, John. And if you have an opportunity to teach our attackers the error of their ways, feel free.”

“Roger that.” He no sooner signed off than they were at the Jumper Bay and stowing their supplies.

“You're going to like this one, Colonel.” Rodney was smiling, the kind of expression that promised misfortune to their enemies. “I've written us a new subroutine. It should only take a second or so after clearing the Gate to get the cloak fully operational. You know, enemies for the fucking up of.”

Sheppard shot him a truly feral grin. “I like that. Always did feel kind of naked waiting on that thing while the shit hit the fan.”

“You and me both. I'd boot it in transit, if there was a way to keep it from fucking up the wormhole.” Really Bad Things happened if you tried to fly a cloaked ship, however small, though the Gate. He put his computer down long enough to grab his tac vest and gear up, while John ran through preflight and the others got strapped in.

“Okay, Rodney, dial the Gate. Time to rock and roll!” 

Cadman whooped and exchanged fistbumps with Ronon. Teyla smiled her Hunting Cat smile, and Rodney smacked the keys of the DHD with entirely too much enthusiasm. But dammit, this was personal!! It could just have easily been his own team pinned down out there, wondering if they were going to make it home.

His eagerness had absolutely nothing to do with having been itchy and restless all damned day. Nope. Not one damned thing.

*******

Miko Kusanagi knelt in front of her butsudan and clapped her hands softly, the sound clear and sharp in the silence of her quarters. She had already refreshed the offerings and lit some of the precious incense she had brought from home, what seemed like so very long ago. She wound her mala beads between her thumbs and bowed her head, quietly reciting the names of her honoured ancestors and imploring their assistance in this matter. Not all of her ancestors were human, but all had respected the importance of family. Her clan maintained its loyalties in both the mundane and the spiritual worlds. Evan was not Japanese by blood, but he, too, had grown up there, and he shared many of her values.

While she knelt there, she allowed her mind to recall the first time she saw him Shifted. Learning that the sometimes brash, oh-so-very-American soldier's Other side was _kitsune_ had been like a breath of fresh air from the mountains of her home prefecture. When he had invited her to partake of the tea ceremony with him, he had captured her heart. His flawless execution and loving attention to detail had merely firmed her conviction that this was a man whose friendship and regard she would be happy to accept. To know that even now, he was out there in the night somewhere, hiding from those who would capture or kill him given a chance, was pure torment. 

Miko bowed deeply once more, clapped her hands again, then rose, heading for her lab, and Atlantis' mainframe. Where Evan carried a gun, some C4, and his Fox magic into battle, Miko's weapons were the city herself, and the computers woven into Atlantis' very self. Though her grandmother had been Fae by birth and a _yamato nadeshiko_ by nature, Miko followed a more modern tradition. To a degree.

As the door of her quarters hissed shut behind her, she vowed to make those who had struck at her Evan regret the days of their birth.

*******

The new subroutine worked a treat; the Jumper came flying through the Gate on a steep diagonal vector, and was fully cloaked within one second of emerging from the Gate. John verified this on the HUD, then brought the Jumper sharply around, heading for the main Eruessan village. The soldiers guarding the Gate never even came close to hitting them.

“Nice one, Rodney. I think that one's a keeper.” John grinned rakishly, then turned back to his flying. Yeah, the Jumper would stay on course if he thought at it to do so; he still felt more comfortable flying hands-on.

Rodney smirked, then bent over the sensor controls. “Hey, did Ana-- did whatshisname have any idea where the prisoners were being held? Be nice to know where to start...”

Teyla leaned forward, her voice calm and even as always. “Anaan did not know for a certainty, but there is only the one small village within easy reach of the Ring. That is the only place where there are buildings of stone, such as might make a good prison. The people themselves live in wooden structures that would be very easy for our men to escape.”

“Works for me.” Rodney's fingers danced across his keyboard. “Huh.”

John hated this – that “Huh” might mean anything from “Where's my donut?” to “Holy crap we're all gonna die!” He scowled, dumping velocity as the town came into sight. Teyla hadn't been joking; there were all of half a dozen stone structures, none over two stories in height. The rest of the buildings would have fit right in among the single-family dwellings of medieval Japan – not exactly built to hold even one pissed-off Marine, much less a whole team. “Any of their transponders showing up yet?”

Rodney scowled. “No. And they should be, I'm getting clear human readings from all of these structures, but no transponders.”

“Okay, that's new and different. All right, let's look further afield.” He put the Jumper into a slow, wide turn, scanning the rest of the rather unimpressive town – with no luck. “Crap. I wonder if the transponders have been removed. Though even then I should be able to read something from the remains of the chips...” Now John was scowling too, while Rodney leaned forward eagerly, peering out the windshield as if by sheer will he could see what their instruments couldn't. Not for the first time, John found himself cursing the fact that the Gatebuilders had spread standard-model humans all over two galaxies – no Star Trek magic here, of easily distinguishing one's own readings among those of the locals. The Ancient devices could tell Wraith signals from humans, but that was it. 

Hmm... now that was an interesting idea. But first he had to finish flying the search pattern, just in case some of their missing team were still on the loose.

Half an hour later John was one seriously pissed-off man. Not a single transponder ping anywhere in or around the town. No readings for radios, weaponry, or any Ancient or Tau'ri tech. Not even a trace of the elements usually used in their electronics. There were plenty of lifesigns, including in two of the larger stone buildings, but no way to tell if any of those lifesigns belonged to their missing personnel. 

And all attempts at radio contact had failed. It was as if their people had dropped off the face of the– ah, fuck.

“Rodney – what are the odds they've been taken offworld?” His stomach sank as he said the words. Somehow it felt _right_ , though he wasn't much of a one for visions of any kind. But something just fit. 

“Huh. You know, they might. It would explain our lack of readings, wouldn't it.”

“How do we tell?” Ronon's scowl was epic, the kind that can sour milk, make babies cry, and send cats hissing out of the room. “'Cause if you need any of those so-called soldiers to talk to, it can be arranged.” He petted his blaster and his sword.

“I've got a better idea. I'm gonna need to dial the gate, though. I need to talk to Miko.” Rodney had his smug Great Idea grin now. John liked that grin. It usually meant someone _else_ was going to get their ass chewed for a change. And Miko...

That was right. Miko had certain _abilities_ , not shared by the average human; she'd inherited some of her Fae grandmother's magic. John reached out and keyed in the Gate address for Atlantis. He didn't send his IDC; that way the Gate-shield would stay up, and keep those assholes out of the city.


	7. Head Like a Hole

“Atlantis, this is Jumper One, do you copy?” John had the Jumper hovering off to one side of the Eruess Gate, maybe twenty meters up. He could see some of the enemy soldiers looking around, but no-one was looking in the right direction. They could hear something, but the sounds were too muffled; they couldn't pinpoint the Jumper with the cloak engaged.

“Atlantis here, we read you five by.” Good, Chuck was on shift now. John was always happier when it was either Chuck, or Amelia. They were the two most experienced Ops personnel; shit just ran more smoothly with one of them on the Hot Seat.

“I need you to patch me through to Dr. Kusanagi, if you could.”

“Roger that. Stand by please.” Rodney was waggling his eyebrows and looking interested, now; John just signed for him to wait, while delicately nudging the Jumper around to the Gate's other side. No point in making things any easier for the bad guys than they had to.

Rustles and crackles over the speakers, then, “Colonel Sheppard, Kusanagi here. How may I assist your efforts?” That was Miko – although she was small and often thought of, by those who knew no better, as fragile, she was always calm and professional, no matter what the crisis at hand might be.

“I need a favor from you, if I may. We're starting to think our people have been taken off this world; we haven't found a trace of them yet. We could download the data storage from this DHD, but that would involve a battle I don't want to waste time and ammunition on, if our people truly aren't here any more. I'd rather save it for the captors themselves. Is there any chance you could scry for their current location? The less time we waste, the better our odds.” Miko had some special abilities, inherited from the Fae side of her family. When he was interviewing personnel after Sumner's death, he'd been very impressed with her bravery. Since then, his respect for her had only increased. Whatever he or Rodney asked of her, she found a way to get it done. 

“Of course, Colonel Sheppard. It will take me a few minutes; I will start now, and call you back when I am done.”

“Thanks. We'll hold station here for now. Jumper One, out.” As soon as the signal cut out, John moved the Jumper higher up and further back. The wind was picking up outside, as planetary nightfall approached, and he didn't want to give their location away by making an obvious gap in the blowing dust currently billowing around the Gate.

*******

Miko knelt once more in front of her butsudan. This time, though, she was leaning over her grandmother's scrying bowl, half-Shifted into her Cat form, watching as ripples shivered back and forth across the surface of the water, letting her mind sink into the trance she needed to See True. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was deeply afraid for Evan and his team, but she kept that firmly locked away for now. She came from a very old lineage; she refused to disgrace her ancestors by failing in this. Colonel Sheppard had saved all their lives more than once, since the expedition first arrived in Pegasus; Miko had long felt herself to be in his debt, and now she could repay a small part of that obligation, she was determined to succeed.

In one hand/paw she held several small, smooth, black and white stones – Go pieces, brought from home just like the incense. She sat motionless, breathing deep and slow, until the tingling rush of the scrying trance went dancing through her brain. Then, keeping her eyes deliberately unfocused, she dropped first one, then another and another stone into the water, concentrating only on the repeated and reflected patterns of the ripples she had caused. Slowly her awareness of her surroundings faded, as her mind reached outward, seeking first Evan, as her regard for him was the strongest.

Unnoticed, her eyelids closed partway, her vision greying out, her hearing fading. Her ears swiveled back and forth, seeking the Other. Behind her the tip of her tail twitched, but otherwise she sat still...

Dust. Dust, dry wood, smoke, and the tang of blood. Her nostrils flared as she began to perceive Elsewhere. It was hot where they were; either mid afternoon, or a world rather warmer than Lantea. No smell of water at all, but now she identified a second odor – gun oil, and the faintest trace of cordite woven through it.

She could hear sounds now, too. Someone's breathing was very near, but whoever it was sounded congested and short of breath. The sounds of a wooden building creaking in the wind, a half-muffled cough, followed by a stream of curses. Some kind of insect trilling in the background, almost but not quite like crickets. There was pain, too, that odd sensation of pain that belonged to the Other she sought, but not to her. Ribs, cheekbone, and wrists. His head was aching, and he could not move much. He was restrained. This echoed; more than one of their people was hurting, wherever they were being held. But they were alive! Or rather, Evan was. Of the rest, she could not yet be sure.

Sound, scent – now she concentrated fiercely, seeking some image, any image, that might help the Colonel to find their missing people.

Darkness, only slowly beginning to resolve into an image. Dark brown dirt floor, crude wooden wall, rusted iron bars. No windows, or if there were, it was dark outside. Miko frowned and focused her will... no. No windows. So they were deep inside a building, or held underground.

No, not underground. But where? She dropped another stone into the scrying bowl, opened her eyes once more and concentrated fiercely, reaching outward as far as she could...

Footsteps approaching. The sound of a key rattling in a metal lock, rough and squeaky-sounding. Click-clack of some kind of firearm being cocked. “All right, it's your turn. The Commander wants to talk to you.” Restraints being removed, as he was prodded to his feet and led from the cell. Then darkness again, and the musty smell of old sweat and fear soaked into the cloth now covering his face.

As he was led from the cell, she turned her mind still further inward, thinking of a Gate address, feeling for the symbols with her mind, whether seen by their own, or held in the minds of their enemies. The distinction was unimportant at the moment. Miko let the air drift in and out of her lungs, listening to the beating of her heart, the faint counterpoint of the Other's,

She had a brush in hand and paper in her lap. After a time her hand lifted up the brush; she let it move as it would, thinking only of the symbols in the address, of where exactly this prison might be – and whose world they would need to search... As her mind floated ever inward, her hand began to sketch, fluid and graceful strokes, making up a string of Gate-symbols. She kept her eyes nearly closed, so as not to interfere with the link in any way.

Finally she was done; the link shuddered and faded away as she let her mind rise up out of the trance. Only when her consciousness was once more firmly rooted in her own body did she open her eyes and look at the paper in her lap.

If Miko had been anyone other than who she was, she would have cursed like a sailor. She had seen this address before, in AR1's reports. The whole situation had just become hideously more complex.

Lorne and his team, if this was correct, were now being held somewhere on the Genii homeworld. The soldiers who had invaded Eruess must have sold the team to the Genii, if they hadn't been working for them directly. There were wanted posters of all eight members of AR1 and AR2 scattered all over Pegasus, courtesy of Commander Kolya and his greedy, grasping leader, Cowen.

She rose smoothly, brushing the wrinkles out of her uniform, and set out for Gate Operations. Elizabeth needed to be informed. Colonel Sheppard was not going to be happy about this, not at all. 

*******

“Fuck, that sonofabitch needs to die in the worst goddamned way.” Rodney scowled ferociously at Miko's news. Talk about your worst-case scenarios!

“Thanks, Miko.” Sheppard bounced up out of the pilot's chair and stretched, trying to loosen his neck, which felt like too-tight steel cords. “Not the best news, but at least it gives us a direction to proceed in. You have helped me greatly with this, Dr. Kusanagi. I am very grateful for that help.” He tapped the earpiece again, switching channels. “Elizabeth, did you catch any of that?”

“This is Weir. Yes, I did.”

“What do you want us to do? I have to admit, I want to go beat on those assholes in the worst possible ways, but...” Elizabeth had been talking for a while now about trying to trade with the Genii once more. If it was up to John, they would never set foot on that world again no matter _what_ was offered in trade. He wanted, fiercely, to just charge to the rescue, guns blazing. He was pretty damned sure he could talk Elizabeth into it. But this was not the time to publicly undercut her. He knew only too well the corrosive effect that those sorts of actions by superior officers had on a command. Whatever he might think about some of her plans, Elizabeth had far more experience with diplomacy of all sorts than anyone else in the expedition, including him – and after the events during the Great Storm, she had no more affection for the Genii than John did.

Elizabeth squared her shoulders and set her jaw, meeting Miko's eyes and seeing the identical resolve to her own. “Seems to me there's really only one thing to do, Colonel. Get our people back. What do you need?”

John didn't need to turn his head to know that his entire team was raring to go. He could feel it. “Couple of Jumpers full of Marines always come in handy. More C4, detonators. Any spare loads for Cadman's launcher; I think there's still a couple in the back of the armory. More ammo, too.” No point taking chances.

“Very well. Two Jumpers full of Marines and gear, coming up! Good hunting, Colonel Sheppard!”

“Yeah. Have them meet us here first; Rodney's got a little software upgrade for them. Sheppard, out.”

*******

“What's the sitrep, sir?” Markham stowed one last case of ammo in the back of Jumper One and straightened up. All three Jumpers were parked in a meadow, a couple of klicks away from the Eruess Gate. Dawn was just about to break; the Eruessan sky was turning a haunting shade of blue-green, shading to yellow-orange where the sun was about to come up. Only a few of the brightest stars remained visible, on the opposite side of the sky. John couldn't help wishing that the Jumpers came equipped with stunners as well as drones, but there were so many other things the Science Department already had to do; that was kind of far back on the list. They would have to visibly fly past the invaders to go through the Gate, and hope they had no way to warn the Genii. Drone weapons were far too likely to damage the Gate or the DHD, stranding them here, and John didn't want to waste time and ammo fighting medieval infantry on foot.

Not much point in worrying about it now. There was too much to do.

“Don't know exactly, not yet. But I've got intel that says they're on the Genii homeworld now – I had Miko scry for us because we weren't finding a damned thing here. I'm guessing the soldiers that invaded here were either mercenaries hired by the Genii, or opportunists that found some of those fucking flyers Kolya's been posting everywhere.” 

Markham scowled. “Fucking Kolya's a waste of someone else's oxygen. Sonofabitch needs to die.”

“You won't get any argument from me on that, Sergeant.”

John finished loading up his pockets and his pack, and they exited the Jumper to meet with the rest of the strike team. Rodney, meanwhile, finished with Markham's Jumper Two and went straight to work installing the cloaking patch on Jumper Six, Lt. Edison's ship.

“Okay, here's the deal. Ordinarily, I'd send one Jumper on reconnaissance and keep the others back here. But there's no telling how closely the Genii watch their Gate. Even dialing it to communicate might be difficult, once our first entry has set off their alarms. Getting more Jumpers through when they're watching is a whole other problem. So we're all going at once. As soon as Rodney's finished working on the cloaks, we'll dial up the Genii homeworld and fly through the Gate. The moment you clear the Gate turn on the cloak and change your vector. All comms will be in encrypted mode with the new coding; they don't reach quite as far that way, but we don't want the Genii listening in on our comms.” Not being a moron, John's standing orders mandated that all access codes be changed the moment they confirmed that anyone had been captured. Any personnel escaping their captors could always communicate in clear. “We have to assume that if they have our team, they have their gear, including headsets. We'll fly a standard three-ship search grid; Rodney will coordinate with you on the settings and ranges. The moment anyone gets a ping back, let me know.

“It's likely we're not going to have much time to take action once we find our guys. There's no telling how well-defended they will be or how difficult they might be to reach. Above all be careful. If you have to set down anywhere for any reason, lock and cloak your Jumper. I do not want to gift the Genii with any of our ordnance. Ideally we get in, grab our guys, and get the fuck out. You are not authorized to fuck this up, understood? Oh, and if anyone gets the chance to grease Kolya – be my guest. He has more than earned his death, and I don't really give a damn who kills him.” If it was John who got the chance, great. But either way, Kolya needed to die.

Rodney came trotting out of Jumper Six just then. “All right, all three Jumpers are ready to go. You don't have to do anything differently; I've built the new subroutine right into the cloaking software itself so just activate it the way you always have.”

Markham shot him a thumbs-up. “Thanks, Doc. I owe ya one.”

*******

Evan Lorne jolted awake from a nightmare and fell right off the hard, narrow bunk, landing on the floor and further bruising his already-battered body. He didn't need the extra bruises; Kolya's goons had worked him over pretty good in that first interrogation. Like all of them, he was wearing just T-shirt and shorts; the first thing the Genii had done was take away all of his gear and everything he had hidden about his person, including all his Fox magic tools and supplies. He could still do a few simple charms without them, but nothing he'd tried on the cell doors had worked, so far. Finally his aching and exhausted body had forced him to get some sleep.

He groaned, gingerly rubbing the newest knot on his skull, then climbed wearily back into the top bunk, careful not to jostle poor Reed as he did. “Fuck. Welcome to the fucking Genii fucking douchebag Commander pig-fucking Kolya's ass-licking Hilton; where the truly discerning prisoner will accept nothing less than the very fucking best of Genii hospitality!!”

Coughlin gave a rusty laugh from across the cell. “Heh. Lemme tell ya, the maitre'd is _not_ getting a tip from me, Major.” He spat on the floor. “I'd like to take a nice big crap in Kolya's skull, forrealz.”

Reed didn't say a thing; one of the invading soldiers back on Eruess had smashed him in the head with a club and he'd been unconscious ever since – a fact about which the Genii had been quite vocally annoyed. All Evan knew was, if they didn't get out of here pretty damned soon, he was going to be stuck writing to yet _another_ team member's widow. Whether or not that happened, Evan very much hoped to tear strips off of fucking Kolya's hide for all the crap he and his team had been through on this shitty-ass mission.

They'd been ambushed on Eruess, distracted by a wagonload of wounded civilians who'd turned out to be nothing of the kind. Evan had a sprung knee and a crudely-bandaged sword wound on his right arm, Reed had a pretty bad head injury. Coughlin had several broken ribs and a smashed gun-hand, and could hardly move, and poor Davis had been killed in the initial ambush. Parrish wasn't here in the cell; Evan had no idea where he was now, much less whether he had survived.

The problem was, doing anything to the Genii first required that they get the _fuck _out of this cell, and _that_ was proving difficult. It was built out of nothing but heavy wooden timbers and cold iron bars; there were no electronics for him to tickle. He could still Shift from human to Fox and back, but without his tools and spell charms, his repertoire was more limited than usual. Davis had been their pyrotechnics specialist. Coughlin's Other Side was a grizzly – but even grizzlies can only take so much mechanical damage before they're effectively neutralized. Reed was a Ghost Walker; he could temporarily possess and control another human being, with a certain amount of effort – but Reed might or might not ever wake up again.__

The more he contemplated the situation, the more Evan began to realize that they probably weren't going to escape this under their own power.

He winced, realizing there was nothing he could do to soften the blow. By the time Atlantis learned his fate, it would be far too late to help him. _I'm sorry, Miko-chan. I don't know if I'm going to make it home, this time._


	8. Fuck the System!!

“That's the rest of them sir.” Cadman snapped one last detonator/C4 package together and carefully packed it in with the rest of them. Altogether she had made twelve of them; three apiece. After all, you just never knew when you might come across some asshole who desperately needed killing. On Geniia, the odds were pretty damned good they'd meet a _bunch_ of them. She had already made the first SAM ready for insertion in her pet launcher; it would only take a few moments to sock it home, arm it, and fire away. Personally, she was hoping to fire it right up Kolya's worthless ass – if not him, then Cowen. Laura wasn't real fussy; either one would do her just _fine_ , please and thankya. 

In the pilot's seat, John made one last scan of the Eruessan town, just to make sure. Still nothing. No surprise. It was time to get going. No point in giving the Genii any more lead time. Cowen struck John as nothing more than a power-hungry brute, but Kolya was a different creature altogether. He suspected that Cowen was only alive because Kolya found it preferable to be the power behind the throne, as opposed to being the human target occupying said throne. Not that it mattered all that much; it was John's very firm intention that before he and his teams returned home from this mission, both of those men would be extremely, permanently dead.

“All right, you guys. Saddle up; it's time to head out. Remember, as soon as we're through and cloaked again, we rendezvous above the Genii gate, two klicks straight up. They've got a lot of guns and a few cheesy nukes, but they have nothing that can fly, and no way in hell to detect us while we're cloaked. As soon as all three Jumpers make the rendezvous, we'll start the search grid, as Rodney programmed it. Any questions?”

There were none, and John allowed himself a small, very feral grin. Time to go kick some Genii ass.

*******

Elizabeth heard the Gate activating and wandered out of her office to see what was happening. Chuck turned in his seat, to meet her eyes. “Dr. Weir? We're receiving an old-style analog video feed; looks like it's the Genii homeworld calling.”

“Very well. Open a channel.” The main viewscreen flickered and rippled, then settled down into a blurry picture, with the characteristic rolling horizontal bar, just like the analog television sets Elizabeth had grown up with. She could remember when any analog picture ported over to digital showed exactly that same rolling bar. 

The transmission showed a nondescript office with battered metal furniture and dingy brown-painted walls. Behind the desk sat Commander Acastus Kolya, Atlantis' current Public Enemy Number One. He was scowling into the camera, and Elizabeth allowed herself a momentary grin, well aware that she had an advantage in that he couldn't see her face in return. The Genii equipment was far too primitive to display a Tau'ri video signal, and Elizabeth wasn't about to order Zelenka to convert one for the likes of Kolya. Hell, the Genii were still using RGB television monitors with _vacuum tubes_ , of all things.

Too bad for Kolya. He didn't have his pet Wraith anymore. Let him threaten and bluster. He was going to be in a world of hurt, if she had anything to say about it.

Kolya glared into the camera. “Dr. Weir? We need to speak.”

“Oh, do we? Then go ahead. Speak.” She wasn't giving an inch to this asshole. 

“I have some people that you might want to get back, Dr. Weir. Surely we can at least have a civil discussion?” He spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. Unfortunately, his flat black eyes, like stones, gave the lie to any peaceful air he might have intended. They were cold and dead, empty and hard. Elizabeth had seen scorpions with warmer, friendlier eyes.

“So discuss. I'm listening.” 

“I'm assuming you would like your people back while they are still alive. If so, then we can make a trade that will benefit us both.”

“What kind of trade? Keep in mind, Commander, that life seldom works out as one might wish.” Pretty much everyone in Gate Ops had given up even pretending to work now; everyone was glued to the screen, waiting to see what would happen next. They weren't even making bets, which was actually kind of amazing. The Marines bet on damned near _everything_ , and the civilians were never far behind.

“Ah, but this is true for us all, not so? My proposition is a simple one, Dr. Weir. You no doubt wish to have your people returned to you. I have a wish, also. In order to retrieve your people, I require you to give us four of your so-useful 'Puddlejumpers,' and the rest of the C4 you were supposed to provide us the last time we did business together.” 

Elizabeth almost snorted. That would be the time John had surprised Kolya by ambushing the Genii's ambush in turn, with far superior firepower in the form of two additional cloaked Jumpers. _Did business together, my ass!_

“I see. And if I refuse this offer?”

“Then your people will die, as slowly and painfully as possible. It is nothing personal, you understand. Simply good business practices. Believe me when I tell you, I am not in the habit of making empty threats, Dr. Weir.”

“We require some time to consider this, Commander.”

“I understand. Just make sure you don't take too much time. It would be a shame if anything unfortunate were to happen because you waited too long.”

Elizabeth held back a snarl by main force of will. A lifelong diplomat, broker of many a peace treaty, it surprised her a little to find how very intensely she wanted to rip Kolya's throat out with her bare teeth. She had never forgotten his actions during the Great Storm; the men he and his soldiers had killed, the cowardly way they had gained access to the city, by torturing a drunken Athosian farmhand and stealing his IDC. She had been surprised at herself, when John had put up the Gate shield in time to kill the rest of Kolya's soldiers, for just how viciously pleased she had been at the thought of all those doomed Genii vaporizing against the shield. The wormhole left absolutely nothing behind, not so much as a grease spot. Before that day she hadn't known this about herself, just how fiercely she felt Atlantis was theirs, and how how hard she was willing to fight to keep it. They had paid in some of their dearest blood for the abandoned Ancient city; no swaggering would-be tyrant was going to take it away that easily. She had spent more than a few hours afterwards in reconciling this new knowledge with the person she had previously thought herself to be.

Kolya was fidgeting a little, now, as he waited for her to reply. Elizabeth let him fidget, judging the moment with a skill born of long practice. When she finally did speak, it pleased her to see his scowl deepen even further. _I haven't even begun to fuck with you yet_. “Call us back in three hours. We should have an answer for you then, Commander. Atlantis, out.” She drew a hand across her own throat, and Chuck cut the signal, understanding her perfectly. The last she saw of Kolya, he was scowling ferociously, obviously not satisfied with the path their conversation had followed.

Good. Let him stew. There was no way in hell she was going to turn over either their C4, or their Jumpers. Since their first unfortunate interactions, Teyla, Halling, and Ronon had briefed both her and Colonel Sheppard on who the Genii really were, who they had been once before, and how badly they yearned to defeat the Wraith – but not so humans in the Pegasus galaxy could relax, oh no. The Genii wanted, more than anything, to return to the days when they had held a dozen different planets in their armored fists, cruelly subjugating the people and stealing their resources for the Genii alone to use.

_Tin-pot two-bit Stalin wannabees. Not **about** to happen, not on my watch._

*******

The first part was easy. Their insertion into Geniia went flawlessly. It was very early in the morning on the Genii homeworld when the three Jumpers came flying through the gate; the sun had not yet risen, though the sky was growing lighter by the minute. The moment Jumper One's cloak had engaged, John thought the rear hatch open and watched as Ronon leaned out into space, secured by a rope and a harness. He quickly stunned the four Genii soldiers guarding the Gate. John piloted the Jumper in a tight little circle and verified that there were no other life signs nearby. He then landed next to the Gate, still cloaked, while Teyla, Cadman and Ronon wrestled the unconscious Genii aboard. They stripped them of all their gear and their radios, then flew twenty klicks away from the Gate, a good long walk away from any of the Genii farms or buildings. In their skivvies, bereft of either comms, boots, radios, or weapons, it was going to take them most of at least one day to get back. Maybe two. These guys definitely weren't Marines, John thought as he helped Ronon wrestle the pasty-faced, unconscious farm boys out onto the ground. He even parked their fool asses in the shade, knowing damn well that the courtesy wouldn't have been returned if the situation had been reversed. But it was Kolya he had the real beef with, not these guys.

Task accomplished, John turned the Jumper around and set course for their predetermined rendezvous point. Hopefully one of the other teams would have found something on their sensors by then.

“Surprised you didn't just kill the bastards,” Ronon drawled.

“I thought about it, believe me. But these guys are just cannon fodder. It's Cowen and Kolya that really need killing. I don't want to become the sonofabitch in the course of fighting him.”

Ronon nodded, curiosity satisfied, then went back to sharpening his sword, having already rolled up and stowed the rope and harness. That was a neat trick; he was going to have to remember that one.

*******

Evan woke up slowly, confused and groggy at first. His head was pounding and his whole body ached as if– Aw, fuck. He remembered now. They were on Genea, in Kolya's toilet bowl of a prison.

And that was when he noticed the smell. He waited a few breaths, hoping it wasn't what he thought. But it wasn't going away, and it wasn't the kind of smell a man ever forgot, after smelling it once. In Evan's mind it was all tangled up in memories of other hot, damp places where he'd smelled it before.

It was the smell of death. Cursing under his breath, Evan gingerly lowered his feet over the side of his bunk, then let himself slide forward, landing with his bare feet on the dirt floor that was the only part of their cell that always stayed cool. He held onto the bunk frame and just breathed for a minute, trying to ignore the white noise rushing in his ears, the shaking of his body, alarmed now at just how truly trashed and fucked up he was feeling. Shit, at this rate, if a way to escape did somehow come up, he wouldn't be able to make use of it.

Finally, fresh out of delaying tactics, he turned and knelt next to Reed's bunk.

 _Assfucking cunt-punting Genii motherfuckers!_ He hadn't been wrong. Sometime while Evan had been sacked out, Ordnance Specialist Corey Reed had shuffled off this mortal coil.

At least he'd been out for the count. He hadn't had to feel it. As badly injured as he'd been, that was probably a mercy. Elements knew, Evan couldn't have actually done anything useful to help him. Didn't matter; he felt guilty as fuck anyway. So he did the only things he could; he took Reed's dogtags and hung them around his own neck, then lifted the ratty old blanket high enough to cover his face. He clapped his hands together softly and closed his eyes for a moment. “Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Butsu...” He kept his voice low as he chanted. The way Coughlin was snoring, it was unlikely he'd wake up. But Evan didn't want to disturb him. There would be plenty of time later to be conscious and miserable.

Reed had been a good kid, the kind that carried a picture of his dog and had joined up for all those reasons the old-timers just laughed at. Evan hoped he'd made it to whatever afterlife he'd wanted. _I'll see about getting fucking Kolya's scalp for you, kid._

It wasn't until he was halfway back up into his bunk that he noticed it. The crook of his right elbow was sore as hell, and it was a familiar sensation. Carson had been known to get more than a little needle-happy at times. Now he understood why he'd felt so crappy. The bastards had drugged him. Hell, they'd probably done the same thing to Coughlin.

Hah. Wouldn't have done them any good. Sheppard had drilled it into all of them, over and over again. “Fuck yes, give up the codes if they ask for them. It won't matter. SOP from here on out: anyone gets captured, all their codes get replaced. That has gotta be the stupidest fucking reason _ever_ to get invaded. There will be no Foothold situations on Atlantis on my watch, understood? So don't get all brave and stupid. Sing like a fucking bird. It won't hurt us, and it might buy you a little more time for us to find and retrieve you.”

Evan drifted back to sleep imagining the scowl on Kolya's face when the codes in question turned out to be obsolete. Hopefully Elizabeth would give him a good earful.

*******

“Sheppard! I've got something!” John glanced over in time to see Rodney pointing at part of the HUD. There were four small blips, almost off the edge of the screen.

“Transponders?” He knew it wouldn't be that easy, but a guy could hope...

“Used to be. Smashed-up semiconductors. Still, nothing the Genii could duplicate. They must have cut them out.”

Figured. It was getting to be a real bad habit, as far as John was concerned. He'd had one or two cut out before himself. Wasn't much fun. He resolved all over again to bend Carson's ear the first chance he got. There had to be a better way, a sneakier place to hide them. Intact, they could be picked up from orbit. Smashed, not so much.

Shit, he'd borrow Todd's subspace beacon design, if only he could figure out how to hide the signal from the Wraith.

Fuck it. It was a lead at least; more than they'd had to go on before. He swung the Jumper into a fast, smooth turn, while beside him Rodney commed the other two Jumpers. It was getting to the point where AG-1 hardly had to talk anymore, they knew each other that well. John heard the acknowledgement with half an ear; he was busy figuring landing coordinates and communicating with the other two ships' computers. It was something only John had managed to get the Jumpers to do, networking like that, and it had made Rodney ferociously jealous at first, until John talked him into admitting that it was actually a really cool trick. All three followed his lead and set down in a tight triangular formation, at the center of which were the remains of the smashed microchips. Since they were still cloaked, those cloaking fields converged and hid the center of the triangle very nicely. Didn't hurt that the Ancients had built both the cloak and the shield to work that way. Now the geeks could dig around and check out the site without worrying about getting shot.


	9. Thick as a Brick...

In the end it wasn't the geeks that helped. It only took Rodney and Garvey about ten minutes to announce that actually, beyond confirming that yes, their missing personnel at least had been on Geniia. Whether they still were, or whether they yet lived, the remains of their transponders gave no clues.

Which was when Edison's co-pilot stepped forward. “I might be able to help, sir.”

“Okay, shoot. What have you got for us, Lieutenant?” John leaned back against the side of his Jumper, curious to see what she had in mind. He didn't know Lt. Park Jeong-Ah very well; she was in the latest group of Marines that had rotated in three months ago, on the Daedalus. She was a mechanic and a sometime pilot, who happened to have enough of the ATA gene so she could pilot a Jumper when the need arose. But other than a brief interview on arrival, John hadn't really had much to do with her. He knew she worked under Rollins, in Maintenance, and that her coworkers spoke well of her, and that was about it.

“If it is all right, Colonel, I would touch what is left of the chips. I might be able to feel where they are.” She held herself rigidly correct, in parade rest. This would be the first time she used the Gift she'd inherited from her father since coming to Atlantis. Day-to-day she mostly kept it closed away, so as not to drown in the emotions and experiences every time she touched anything. She'd inherited her Shifted form from her mother, but this? Was entirely from her dad.

“Help yourself, Lieutenant.” John motioned everyone else to move back and give her some room.

Jeong-Ah took off her pack and her cap, and loosened her tac vest. She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. As she did so, she relaxed her grip on her body, allowing it to flow into a more comfortable form. The shape of her skull changed, her jaws got narrower and stuck out more, more like a bird's beak than a human's mouth, although her face stayed mostly pink skin. There were feathers now among the hair, a shining mixture of bronze, copper and rich red-brown. And her eyebrows were longer, bronze-brown, with delicate tufts of feathers on the outward ends.. Large tufts of feathered ears migrated to the top of her head; talons now grew from her fingers. When she opened her eyes again, they were brilliant orange hawk's eyes. To John, she looked more or less like a falcon of some sort – if falcons wore BDUs, stood on booted feet, carried P-90s, and had arms instead of wings. Rodney started to say something, and John held up a hand for silence. To his surprise, Rodney acquiesced and simply waited quietly.

Jeong-Ah gathered the remains of the smashed chips carefully, picking them up between two talons, until she had them all. She stood holding them in the palm of her hand, her eyes drifting closed again. She flung her head back and her body jolted hard enough to nearly knock her down. Then she opened her eyes again, and even through the changed shape of her face, John could see the sadness there.

“I am sorry, Colonel. Not everyone is still alive. Only two of these people still live.” She bent down to lay the pieces on a sheet of paper, on top of her pack. Moving very quickly, but with a delicate touch, she separated the shards into four roughly equal piles. Then one at a time, she handled each one. After a minute or two, she had pushed two of them off to the side of the paper.

“Can you tell us anything else?” John was intrigued. He'd never met an avian Shifter before. They weren't very common. He'd never actually seen one Shift. She was beautiful, in either form, and while John had a firm rule about never sleeping with his subordinates, he was still male, and even though he was pretty badly fixated on Rodney nowadays, he could still look.

She looked up at him again. “Yes, a little. These two,” she touched the two rejected piles with one claw, “are dead. This one was Specialist Reed. And this one was Corporal Davis. Reed's body is still on this world, Davis' body is on Eruess, but their spirits are gone.” She reached for one of the remaining two. “This is Major Lorne, and this,” touching the other, “is Sergeant Coughlin. Neither is uninjured, but they still live.”

“And Parrish?”

“I do not know. His transmitter is not here. Beyond that... I cannot say.”

Behind him, John heard several of the Marines snarling among themselves. Ronon leaned over and spat between his fingers, careful to avoid both Lieutenant Park and the remains of the missing people's transponders.

“Fucking Genii,” he growled. “We ought to just take their fucking Gate away and put it to a better use.”

John sighed. “Yeah – but then what happens to the local civilians when the Wraith come again and they've got no escape? That's the problem here. Not everyone on this shithole of a world is one of Kolya or Cowen's creatures. If we take away their Gate, we doom the whole world, not just the fuckwads we came here to kill. If we do that, how are we any better than Kolya?” Not to mention how heavy the damned thing would be. John was pretty sure they didn't have anything that could actually pick up a Gate. Well, the Daedalus, maybe. _Focus, John_.

“So what are we gonna do?” That was Lieutenant Edison himself. In addition to having the ATA gene, Edison was a Wolf Shifter, an experienced Gate-traveller, and a damned good soldier to have at your back. He'd served on an SG team for three years before asking for a transfer to Atlantis, in the wake of an Ori attack that had killed his team-mates.

John crouched until he was at Jeong-Ah's eye-level. “Can you tell me where they are, where we can find them?”

“Give me a moment, sir. I will try.” She took the bits she'd identified as belonging to Lorne and held them between her hands. Her shape changed a little further; there were more feathers on her head now than hair, and the rest of her body was thinner, with curves and angles in odd places compared to her human form. She swayed for a moment, then opened her eyes again.

“Do you have a map of this world, of any kind?”

Rodney spoke up. “Close enough. Give me a minute; I got some video as we were peeling away from the Gate. I think most of this immediate region, at least. Will that do?” She nodded, and Rodney got out his ubiquitous laptop and tapped away on it briefly, before he handed it over. “This is a top-down view, spy-eye style. I've overlaid some graphics based on what we know is hidden beneath the ground – a lot of these guys live down there full-time. Neither us nor the Athosians had any idea, until we stumbled on the entrance to their warren.”

“Thank you, Dr. McKay.” She sat down and balanced the laptop across her knees, although she didn't quite bend in the standard places, half-Shifted like that. She used the touchpad to move the graphic around for a bit, then started delicately tracing around on the screen itself with one talon, being careful not to press too hard and damage it. Rodney's fury was legendary even among the Marines. Jeong-Ah wasn't about to be the person who destroyed his favourite laptop, not at all.

Finally she stood up, stretched, and flowed back into her human shape again. “They are here, sir.” She pointed out a spot in the middle of what looked like an empty cow pasture. “Somewhere underneath here, and they are both together, along with Specialist Reed's remains.” She handed the laptop back to Rodney and brushed the dirt and grass off her pants. “Is that of any use?”

Rodney tapped on the keys again for a moment. “Okay,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Here's the village. Here's the hatch to their fucking underground bunker complex that Sheppard and I found, the last time we were here. And the spot you pointed to is here, which is more than close enough to be in that same bunker. They live like fucking rats; there must be three times the population under the ground as there are in the villages and farms. These people are batshit crazy, if you ask me.”

John straightened up. “Not all of them have the chance to change, Rodney. People do what they have to do, to stay alive. Anyway, we're wasting time. Here's what we're gonna do...”

*******

“What do you mean, you can't penetrate their comm transmissions? Why _not?_ What am I paying you for, if you cannot even do this?” Acastus Kolya was furious. Cowen was going to be even more furious, if he didn't come up with something useful pretty quickly. And Cowen was a bad man to get on the wrong side of. 

He had judged these Tau'ri to be effete and overcivilized, except for a few maniacs like John Sheppard. He had captured the first group of them easily, catching them unawares, asleep in the housing the Eruessan village elders had provided. By the time they had awakened enough to fight, they'd been staring a dozen Genii rifles right in the eye.

Since then, almost nothing had gone right. He was down to only two prisoners now, and so far he'd gotten almost nothing useful out of them. It seemed the Lanteans were slowly learning; none of the access codes he'd gotten, either through pain or through drugging, had been valid. He was still locked out of the city he so coveted, and his two surviving prisoners were not going to live much longer, according to the doctor he'd borrowed from Surface Command.

He paced back and forth, then returned to Ladim and grasped the front of the man's uniform in his fist, pulling the slighter man halfway up out of his chair. Watery blue eyes gaped up at him; he heard the nervous swallow, saw Ladim's throat wobble up and down as he gave himself away. “Let me be perfectly clear on this matter, Technician. If you do not bring me something useful soon, it will not matter what excuses you may have, we will both endure the wrath of General Cowen. When that happens, I can still go out and bring him more Tau'ri, perhaps even Sheppard himself. You, on the other hand, will be fresh out of options at that point. Now – perhaps you should get back to work, yes? This problem is not going to solve itself. I suggest you try harder. Otherwise, I shall have to dispose of you, and bring in someone who _will_ try harder. Do we understand one another now?”

There it was, that nervous swallow again. And the man's hands were shaking now. Good. Kolya had always believed misery was a thing best widely shared.

“I understand, Commander. If you will excuse me, I must return to the lab.”

“You are excused.”

*******

Evan staggered across the cell to the corner they'd been using. He barely made it before the nausea overcame him and he fell to his knees, desperately, wretchedly sick. His head was pounding; even the slight amount of light down here was hitting his eyes like shards of glass. He was feverish and dizzy. All he could do was sway there on hands and knees, waiting for it to pass, then slowly and painfully make his way back to his bunk. No sooner was he back, than Coughlin had to make the same journey, with the same result.

It didn't help that Geniia was so much hotter than Lantea. Even at the coolest time, which he guessed must be the middle of the night – the light never changed in here, but he figured that was the way to bet – it was stuffy and dank in the cell. The heat, and the continued presence of poor Reed's corpse, made an already difficult task twice as hard. Evan would have moved to the other side of the cell and taken the other bunk above Coughlin's – but really, it wouldn't have helped with the smell.

Coughlin flopped down on his own bunk again, covering his eyes with his hands. “Fuuuck, I dunno what they're shootin' us up with, but that is some rank fucking shit. I think I'm pukin' my toenails up now; there ain't nothin' else left.” He lifted both hands, flipping anyone who might be watching the bird. “Fuck this planet. Talk about the shithole of the universe!!”

“Heh, yeah, you got that right. Doesn't matter, though. We're still breathing for now. You know they have to be coming – no way the Colonel would abandon us to these motherfuckers.”

“No. But if they dose me up with too much more of this crap, it ain't gonna matter, sir.”

“Just keep on taking that next breath, Sarge. That's the only thing you have to do right now. They're coming for us. Our job is to survive, so they can.” It was one of the harder things Evan had ever had to do, trying to keep their spirits focused on the prize – or at least, on outlasting fucking Kolya. The sicker he got, the more he wanted to just curl up in a ball and withdraw, to wait for the end.

Fuck that. He owed Coughlin more than that, and no fucking _way_ was Evan Lorne about to accept defeat from a mutt like Acastus Kolya. No. Fucking. Way.

*******

They set all three Jumpers down in a scrap of wild land that sprawled around the semi-hidden tunnel entrance John and Rodney had found on that first disastrous trading mission. After they were down, John walked quickly around them, checking. Even with the cloak, sometimes crushed grass or footprints in sand could give them away. Not this time; he'd taken his time picking each spot. They were sitting on what looked very much like debris piles from the bunker's construction, or subsequent expansions. Rough ground, full of rocks and scrap concrete and miscellaneous crap. It made climbing in and out a bit tricky, but there was no telltale depression or groove or matted vegetation to give them away. Perfect. Just what the doctor ordered.

John marched up and down in front of his chosen few. Each Jumper had a person remaining inside it, someone who could lift off if needed, fire a drone if needed – whatever might be called for. Three more Marines were staying up there on guard duty, in case it became necessary to hold the area. They had already wired charges to the mouth of the entrance – in case it became necessary to drop the fucking roof in on these assholes. He knew McKay wasn't happy to be staying behind, but John had a feeling he might need to keep Rodney in reserve, just in case. The rest of them all carried loaded packs: grenades, C4 with timers, spare magazines, and a bit of this and that. Could never have too many sharp pointy things, in a situation as fucked up as this.

He'd done some cave-crawling in both Afghanistan and Iraq; it wasn't unfamiliar to him. But he'd hated it then and he was hating having to do it again now. John liked piloting for a reason; dark, cramped close-quarters was never gonna be a personal favourite. Funny what hangups four months as a cave-bound POW could leave you with.

“All right. Final weapons check, people. Everyone got their gear squared away? Anyone need to take a piss before we get rolling? I don't want to have to pull this mission over, so go now.” One of the Marines snorted with laughter, but a couple broke ranks and went to water a tree.

“All right, now here's the deal. This hatch opens up to a shaft that goes about a hundred steps down, then it turns, with a small rest platform, and goes about that much further down. Then there's a hatch into a corridor, and we'll be inside for real. It's dark down there – they only have old-school incandescent bulbs, and not too many of those. Once we're in, it's a lot like one of our bases. Pretty much everyone down there carries at least a side-arm, and there are quite a few with shotguns and rifles. You'll see some of the officers carrying something that looks like a slightly bigger Harry Potter-style wand – those are tasers, and they truly, truly suck if you're hit with them. I've done that and I have no intention of repeating it.

“Each squad has a laptop with the best map we could put together of this shithole. The place where Todd and I were held prisoner is about eight levels down from the entrance at the bottom of this shaft. I don't know if they're holding our guys there or not, but it's a good place to start.”

He signalled to O'Reilly and Simmons. “You guys have an important job – I need for you, and Garcia and Hawkins, to get into the big open area, here. That's their power supply, mostly hydroelectric, and the place where the life-support for the rest of the bunker comes from. I want you to wire that sonofabitch six ways from hell. As soon as we get our guys and start retreating, I'll signal. I might want you to blow it to motherfucking hell and back, I'll figure that out later. But I want the option if need be. Got me? Hawkins, Garcia – these guys have to get this done. I'm counting on you to keep them alive and get them out again afterwards.

“The other thing I'm going to be doing is slapping these comm-relays in discreet dark corners. That way, if we have to call for a few drones to be fired, or what-the-hell-ever, we'll be able to. O'Reilly, you do likewise. And I do mean discreet corners. These guys can't match our tech, but they're the closest fucking thing to our level we've met yet that wasn't the Wraith or the fucking Wraith-worshipping Olesians.

“Ronon, Cadman, and Taggart, you're with me. The rest of you have your assignments. Keep your weapons hot and your brain cool; our guys are counting on us to get them the fuck out of this dump. I do not plan on letting them down. All right. Let's go.” Having met their eyes and found them at least as willing as himself, John strode out of the cloak-field, grasped the handle that led to the entrance-way, and lifted the hatch. Just like before, it came up smoothly and silently, belying the rusty outer surface and general air of neglect.

Gritting his teeth at the thought of climbing down into those fucking tunnels again, John climbed over the lip of the entrance, set his boots on the top rung, and began the long climb down into the Genii warrens. _Fucking hell, if I make it out of here, I'm never going tunnel-crawling ever again. The SGC so doesn't pay me enough for this shit_.


	10. Happy 'Splodey Fun Time!

Rodney sat in the pilot's seat, musing at the HUD the Jumper had obligingly displayed for him. On it he could see the little twinkles of every one of their C4/timer packages; the Jumper's sensors could actually pick them out, even underground. Both the moving ones the teams were carrying, and the stationary ones that had already been planted somewhere useful. Of course, it was helped a lot by the comm-relays Sheppard was planting down there – but still. _Niiiice_.

He closed his eyes for a minute and concentrated, the way he'd been practicing lately – and realized he could see them this way as well. Very nice. After all, never could tell when a little mass destruction might come in handy. As a rule, Rodney wasn't in favour of that sort of thing – but these assholes had made it personal when they'd invaded his home, tortured him, murdered several of his own – and then they'd gone and pulled _this_ shit.

Now if the Genii didn't force his hand, he _might_ leave some of the bombs undetonated. He wasn't completely eager to kill every last soldierly schmuck in the bunker complex, which is what would probably end up happening if he blew their entire power plant to hell. But if the rest of them were to insist on behaving like Kolya? Well then, Rodney would be obliged to show them the error of their ways.

All behind and around the top of his head, although he couldn't feel it, a thatch of glittering, waving threads had lifted up from among his hair, rippling in the still air of the Jumper's cabin. For a moment an electric shiver coursed through his whole body, then he was still again. He sucked in and blew out a couple of big, noisy deep breaths, shook himself, and settled back into his watch. Nerves, that was all. Rodney always got nervous on missions. He needed more coffee – though Carson refused to believe him, coffee really did settle his nerves. Made him steadier, made it easier to think when he was tired or stressed.

He poured himself half a mug of coffee – his own, of course, Rodney was particular about his coffee – and settled in to keep watch, keeping the explosives under his watchful mental eye. Just in case.

 _Payback's a bitch, assholes. Bend over, we're about to school you stupid sons-of-bitches._

*******

Ronon and John alternated on point, as they slowly advanced deeper into the Genii warren. Cadman and Taggart came behind, stopping now and then to plant a little gift for Kolya and his thugs. John had put one comms relay halfway down the warren's entrance shaft, and another at the bottom. Every floor they crossed, he put at least one more.

They didn't have time to search every room – but then again, they didn't have to. Any room without life signs was ruled out. Thanks to Park Jeong-Ah's combination of psychometry and what John's Gran had always called “the Sight,” they knew both their missing men were in one room, and that two of the four were still alive. That said, they still had to hurry. Elizabeth wasn't about to hand Kolya any of their Jumpers, especially after _this_. That meant Lorne's and Coughlin's lives might be measured in hours at most. Kolya wasn't the most patient guy John had ever met.

He still had a damned _feeding scar_ on his chest because of that asshole. Todd had given all his years back and then some, in the end – but John would never forget that sensation for the rest of his life. Todd might be a creepy fucking _space vampire_ , but when he attacked, it was no more personal than when John sat down to a nice T-bone steak. Kolya, on the other hand – that was as personal as anything ever got.

John figured he had a legitimate beef.

Just then Ronon stiffened and signed for everyone to hold up. He waited, then held up three fingers. For now, he had his blaster set on stun. Sneakier this way. Ronon was good with sneaky. Besides, he could always switch it to kill later, if they pissed him off enough. Ronon kept most of his anger for the Wraith – but the Genii were definitely next on the list. He remembered when Kolya had captured John and _fed him_ to a damned Wraith. For that, he had sworn the bastard's scalp was his to take. In truth, he wouldn't get between John and the Genii commander; John definitely had first right there. But Ronon considered John his brother. The man had offered Ronon a home, gotten the Wraith transmitter out of his back, and never once questioned his loyalty or failed to trust him in battle. It was better treatment than Ronon had gotten on his homeworld, and he would never forget that.

Behind him he heard the others in his team breathing, heard the faint creak of hands on salvaged Wraith stunners. 

Three Genii soldiers came tromping down the hallway, gossiping and laughing about 'fucking outworlders'. Not a one had a weapon in hand and they were hardly watching where they were going, they were so caught up in their talk. Ronon's lip curled in disgust. Some soldiers. He grinned nastily, popped his head and hand around a corner, and stunned all three of them before any of them could make a sound. 

Bunch of ignorant farm boys. About time someone took them down a notch or two.

Taggart picked the lock of a room their LS detector said was empty. Perfect. A windowless office with nothing but one desk, a chair – and a ringbolt in the floor, well out of reach of the desk. None of them said it, but they all knew what that had been used for.

John and Ronon exchanged significant looks. Cadman produced a handful of zip-ties and grinned. “Whaddaya know, great minds really do think alike.” Taggart met her grin with another, then she stood guard at the door, while the other three got the hapless Genii all zip-tied together and secured to the ringbolt. Each man's hands were fastened behind his back, each ankle zip-tied to that of the next man. They wouldn't get far like that.

John tore some strips off their jackets and semi-gagged them. He drew the line at stuffing their mouths under the gags – he'd seen men die that way in Afghanistan, and that was a chickenshit way to kill. Now if it were Kolya or Cowen... might be different. But even just a strip of rag would muffle their voices. _Every little bit helps, as the old woman said when she pissed in the sea_.

“Don't want their uniforms? Sneaky is always good.” Ronon grinned, already knowing what Sheppard would say.

“Nah. First of all, how would we get you into one? These guys are kinda wimpy-looking to me. Second, fuck that. I came here to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm _all_ outta fuckin' gum.”

Cadman snorted with laughter, barely muffled behind her hands. “So much geek love, Colonel, sir.”

John just smirked and finished rifling the unconscious men's pockets. He found several seriously cheesy-looking Genii military IDs, a couple of decent knives, three sidearms and, over against the wall, one of those fun-looking three-barrelled whatever-the-hells that looked like it could seriously fuck pretty much anybody's shit up. New toys were always fun. Oh, and a couple of very interesting key-rings. He held them up. “Well, lookee what I found. I wonder what these unlock. Wanna go find out?”

“ _Hell_ , yeah!” Cadman, echoed by Taggart, and by one of Ronon's more demented grins. “What are we waitin' for? Let's get this party rolling!”

And they moved out into the hallway again, once the LSD showed that it was empty. The longer they could keep the alarm from being raised, the better chance they had to pull this off without too many losses – at least on their part. As for the Genii, too damned bad. They may have started this, but John was determined he'd be the one to finish it.

*******

“Jumper One, this is Sheppard. Do you read?”

“I read you. So far it's quiet up here. Lt. Park says to tell you the targets haven't been moved; status quo.” Rodney was kind of pleased; the comm relays Zelenka had designed worked perfectly. Made the odds a little better, which, _hello_ , they so fucking needed right now.

“Roger that; same here. Any good news from the others?”

“None yet; they've checked in, but they haven't found them yet.”

“Understood. Back to it. Next check-in, one half-hour. Sheppard, out.” Well, that was something, anyway. Their guys hadn't been killed yet. No telling how much longer Kolya would wait, though.

The team from Jumper One was huddled in an empty room on level five of the Genii complex, bunker, dungeon – you name it, either way the place was a shithole. John grabbed a power bar from his pocket and chowed it down with a few slugs of water. From here onward it was liable to get interesting. According to Rodney's scans when they landed, there were at least five more levels under this one, including the cells where he and Todd had been imprisoned.

So far they'd left an even dozen of the Genii stunned, stashed, and restrained. With every level they descended, the air got a little hotter and more humid. And it had been pretty humid on the ground level to begin with. The whole damned planet was like fucking Jungle World or something.

John was really, _really_ coming to hate this fucking planet. 

*******

“Commander, if you truly wish to get anything more from these men, you must give them some hours to recover. As they are, neither will survive much more – the next dose may kill them, and if not, the one after that certainly will. Give them twelve hours, and you should be able to resume with much better odds. Failing that, at least eight hours, sir.”

Kolya scowled, but Dr. Tarik stood his ground. “Sir, you brought me here for just this reason, to ensure that no mistakes would be made, not so? I do not seek to defy your orders, merely to point out that corpses make much worse bargaining chips than prisoners do.”

Several minutes passed in silence, then. Neither said more; both had expressed themselves adequately. The doctor knew that his commander appreciated his talents, and both of them appreciated having someone around who wasn't just another semi-moronic farmhand. Even so, he was pushing his luck right now – but in a good cause. Dead men yield no ransom money, much less advanced alien technology. Tarik had seen the medical supplies brought back from the abortive Atlantis invasion. He wanted more of that for his sickbay – better, he wanted some of the texts to back it up. But he'd settle for another microscope and some better lighting for the OR. Oh, and more of those antibiotics, that had worked so much better than their own feeble first attempts.

Finally Kolya turned to look the doctor in the eyes. “You have four hours to do whatever you can for them, Doctor. Then they belong to me. I will get what I want this time, or the Lanteans will regret the day they ever stepped through the Ancestral Ring to the surface of Geniia.”

*******

Seven floors down, now. They had already passed the level where John had been imprisoned. He'd thought at the time it was an absolute shithole – but this level made that one look like the Ritz Hotel. For one thing, there had been light on that level. Not a lot, true – but enough to see by at least. Down here there seemed to be nothing but the Genii equivalent of nightlights, and those were few and far between. And it stunk – yeah. It smelled a lot worse than the general moldy mop-head reek and occasional stench of urine that marked the rest of the complex. This was something he recognized only too well from his time as a prisoner, back in Afghanistan. His captors hadn't much cared whether he and the others lived or died, nor had they been real timely with cleanup when somebody did snuff it.

Somewhere on this level there was a dead body. John caught the attention of the others and they leaned their heads closer. “Heads up, this might be the right level. Lt. Park said they hadn't moved Reed's body yet, and I'm smelling something dead. Might not be our guy – but it might be, and the other two haven't been moved yet as far as Lt. Park can tell.”

Glances flicked from eye to eye. Ronon nodded. “Yeah, I smell it too.” Cadman scowled. Taggart just raised an eyebrow, checked his P-90, and took up a post next to the door.

“Everybody ready? All right, saddle up and let's go.”

John patted his side pocket, making sure Miko's package was there. _Yup. Onward thru the fog_.

*******

“Major? Evan? Wake up sir. I think I hear something. Come on, you have to wake up. Something's happening. Something different, I mean.”

Evan groaned and tried to open his eyes. They only opened about half-way; Kolya had gotten kind of annoyed the last time he'd been questioned, and smacked him around some extra. Evan wished to hell he could have gotten even one hand untied; he'd love to introduce that snake-fucker to the old Kansas City Clutch. That, or he'd have barfed in the guy's lap. Evan gave a half-hearted snicker and let Coughlin help him sit up.

“Fuck, the service in this hotel really sucks.” 

Now it was Coughlin's turn to laugh, rusty and unconvincing as it was. “You can say that again! Here, I saved a bit of that last water ration; I think you need it worse'n I do.”

Evan couldn't even argue the point. It might end up being Coughlin who caught the worst of it next time, but at the moment, Evan was just about out of gas. If Coughlin hadn't been bracing him, he probably would have slid sideways and done a faceplant. So he accepted it when the other man held the bowl up for him and supported him long enough to drink it down. It wasn't much, maybe four full-sized swallows and a trickle of warm, kind of algae-tasting water – but to Evan right then, it tasted like fucking Bollinger, or the really good sake that most _gaijin_ never got to buy.

 _Well, Colonel, you can show up any time now. We are **so** ready to get the fuck out of here_.


	11. Jailhouse Rock

“Ready?” Cadman placed just enough explosive on the door's hinges; no point in wasting any when there was so much else down here to blow up. If it was up to her she'd have blown the whole fucking place sky-high. 

“Ready. Go ahead.” Laura glanced around quickly; they were all just around the corner, out of direct harm's way. The LSD showed just two life signs in there, and this corresponded pretty damn closely to the coordinates Lt. Park had given her.

“Fire in the hole!” She hit the Big Red Switch. There was a muffled blast, mostly directed inward at the hinges, followed by a choking cloud of dust and crap. They stood quietly for a minute, letting the worst of it settle. Then Sheppard and Ronon went barreling round the corner, right into the cell. It was the only one on this level with life signs. _Business must be slow for the Genii Inquisition_.

“We got them!” That was Ronon. Then she heard Sheppard in her earpiece, calling the other two teams back. All three had descended in unison – it was easier to coordinate that way, or defend one another should the need arise. Meanwhile she put her supplies away and headed into the cell.

“Colonel Sheppard?” That was Sergeant Coughlin, looking very much the worse for wear; he was bloodied and bruised and looked like ten miles of bad road. But he was alive. 

John knelt next to the crude concrete slab bunk. “Hey. Sorry it took us so long to get here. The limo's waiting upstairs. What say we blow this popsicle stand?” John peered around the cell. Clouds of slowly clearing dust half-obscured the other side of the room, but he could tell there were two more of the crude bunk slabs on the far wall. Both held motionless forms.

“Limo, huh?” Coughlin started coughing; he couldn't stop until Ronon lifted him up partway and held his own canteen for him. “Oh, fuck me, that tastes _damn_ fine. Glad to see you guys, not gonna pretend different!”

“Wasn't about to leave you here. Just took us a while to figure out where you were. I need to know – can either of you walk? We'll get you out either way, but it affects which way we go.”

Coughlin coughed some more, and slowly drank more water. He didn't dare drink too fast; he didn't want to puke again. Then he rubbed his face roughly on what was left of his sleeve. “I reckon I can, sir. Dunno about the Major, though. He's pretty fucked up.”

Ronon met Sheppard's eyes. This wasn't unexpected, but it made things a little more complicated. Still, they'd thought about this before departing. Ronon stood up and shrugged out of his pack, then drew a bundle off the top and started to assemble it. It was a lightweight portable stretcher with a titanium frame, taking up no more room when stowed than a one-man pup tent. If needed, John was carrying one too. 

Footsteps coming down the hallway; Cadman and Taggart took up posts on either side of the blown door, just in case. But it was only one man, unarmed. He turned when he saw the door, and made as if to flee, only to have Ronon grab his collarbone and pinch, threateningly. “Uh-uh, buddy, you don't want to do that. Who are you and what the fuck are you doing down here?” Ronon could really put a growl in his voice when he wanted to. As usual, it worked.

The man dropped to his knees. “Oh, thank gods you're here. Please, don't kill me – I'm supposed to be keeping them alive, but he won't let me do anything!”

John was skeptical, but since the guy was unarmed, he settled for zip-tying his hands behind him. “All right, start talking. When's the next interrogation due?” He knew there'd be one. _Seen one dungeon, seen 'em all_.

“In four more hours. You have to get out of here; he'll kill all of you!”

“Huh. He can _try_.” John signaled Ronon to keep him secured; no point letting him run and raise the alarm. In a way, Kolya had helped them by imprisoning their men so far away from the main levels. No-one down here to hear when Cadman blew the door. Sweet.

Time to see about Evan. He walked across the cell, sidestepping various evil-looking messes. “Evan. Hey.” Lorne didn't move or speak. On the bunk below him lay what was left of poor Reed. Well, John had a solution for that problem, too. One thing at a time, though. Very gently he put a hand on Lorne's shoulder and shook it. “Hey, Lorne. You hear me? You awake in there?” Nothing. Well, it was hardly a surprise. At least he was still breathing. His pulse was kind of funky and uneven, but he was alive.

 _Time to get the fuck outta Dodge_. “Cadman. Come here and set up a proper Viking funeral for Reed.” John was reaching for Reed's dogtags when he spotted them around Lorne's neck. Good enough.

Cadman hurried over and tucked one of her C4/timer combos under Reed's hand. _Fucking Genii_. Reed had saved her ass a couple of times when she was still a Pegasus newbie. If she had her druthers she'd blow this whole fucking warren to smithereens. Still, at least this was a start. Maybe it would take a few of those assholes out with it – a girl could hope, right?

“Ronon, wanna give us a hand here? Bring the stretcher.”

“Got it.” In Ronon's hands the stretcher looked too small, child-sized. But when he and John carefully lifted Lorne off his bunk and set him down, it was plenty big enough. Cadman pulled a blanket off the top of her pack and tucked it around him, before carefully fastening the straps.

John patted the package Miko had given him just before they left. She'd said Evan would know what to do with it. Might not be much use now, but he held onto it anyway. Lorne might wake up on their way out; weirder things had happened since they came to the Pegasus galaxy.

More footsteps; Team 2 this time. Markham saluted. “I've deployed Team 6 between here and the next inhabited level, in case we need a distraction. They'll peel off and rejoin us on your command, Colonel.”

“All right. I need two volunteers for stretcher duty, and two more to help Coughlin. If he runs out of gas, we have a second stretcher; that won't be a problem.” They might not be able to take the same way out, though – getting Lorne up that shaft unconscious would be a real bitch. No big deal though; any warren this size probably had at least a dozen bolt-holes. If need be, he'd have Rodney fire off a couple of drones and just make a new one.

It only took them a couple minutes to get moving. One unexpected blessing: the Genii had built ordinary staircases between the lower levels. Higher up, it was all vertical shafts like the one they'd taken to get in. But there were three more sets of stairs before they had to worry about climbing.

*******

“Kolya's late calling back.” Chuck frowned at the silent Gate, stubbornly not activating. “Hope nothing went wrong.” Kolya's call should have come in ten minutes ago.

“Wrong? On one of our missions? Shame on you, Chuck. Bite your tongue.” Elizabeth tried to keep her tone light, but by the looks on everyone else's faces, she failed miserably. She shrugged.

Behind her she half-caught movement, as money changed hands between a couple of the technicians on duty. Right on cue, the Gate began to light up, followed by the wormhole's kawoosh.

“Analog video signal again, Dr. Weir. No IDC – it's a Geniian dial-out.”

Elizabeth straightened her shoulders and stared straight ahead. She knew Kolya couldn't see her, but she felt more settled anyway.

“Dr. Weir, I hope you didn't think I had forgotten you.” Kolya's voice was raspier than usual, and his expression was gloomy. 

“Perish the thought; I know you better than that, Commander. What do you want?”

“I believe you know that already, Dr. Weir. Your time has elapsed; I am expecting my Jumpers to arrive at any time now.”

“There's a bit of a problem there,” she said. “Nothing too inconvenient; we're just getting the supplies loaded up. It'll be done in a few minutes, then we send them through.” Anything to string him along; even five extra minutes might make the crucial difference.

“I find that a little difficult to believe, Dr. Weir. Surely you don't wish to test whether I mean what I say? My men have already discovered our Gate guards are missing; that tells me Colonel Sheppard's team must already be here, no doubt up to no good. You disappoint me, madam. I expect to see my Jumpers coming through the Gate _immediately_. You do not need more time.”

Elizabeth said nothing. Wasn't really anything she needed to say. _It was worth trying_.

Just then Chuck noticed a light flashing in the corner of his console. He tapped his earpiece and bent low, keeping his voice very, very soft. “Understood. She says, do what you have to.”

The light blinked out again, but Elizabeth knew what it had been. At least one of her teams had just commed home.

Another minute went by, most of a third. Then Kolya sighed loudly. “Very well. I am surprised at you, Dr. Weir. You struck me as more intelligent than this.” He turned away from the camera and signed something, too rapid to interpret, to someone out of visual range. Footsteps left the room, at a pretty good clip. “You have only yourself to blame for this. If you think you can dissuade me, you are very sadly mistaken.” The signal cut off and the Gate closed down.

Chuck whistled. “Close fucking timing there! That was Colonel Sheppard, ma'am. They've secured our missing people and are on their way back out.”

A ragged chorus of cheers went around Gate Ops at that. Elizabeth held herself silent, hoping they would make it out safely. They still had a long way to go.

*******

Taggart leaned out and fired off a burst from his M16. Their ragged group of Genii followers ducked back, minus one who did a faceplant in the hall and lay still. Ronon came next, firing several blasts at an angle to push them back even further. Behind him came Sheppard, Edison and O'Reilly carrying Lorne, Cadman and Jones helping Coughlin, then the rest. As the last of them went around the corner into the stairwell, Cadman signalled for a stop. She concentrated, and the rumbling sound of several different explosions echoed through the hallway.

“That's Reed's package, plus the bottom two staircases, sir.”

“Good. Let's keep moving. It isn't gonna take long for those guys to call in reinforcements.”

They headed out.

*******

“Fuck, they've got us bottled in.” Taggart cursed, rooting in his pack for another grenade. He had an M203 grenade launcher, another reason he liked his M16 so much. More bang for the buck. Ah, there. He popped it in and turned his head. “Watch your eardrums, y'all. Banger comin'...” Sheppard nodded, and Taggart fired the grenade back the way they'd come, aiming for the ceiling of the tunnel.

As he'd hoped, a fair bit of crap fell, almost completely blocking the hall. “That oughtta slow them sumbitches down, sir.”

“Nice. Okay, move out, let's go!” And they were off again, zig-zagging down the gloomy hallways, firing at anything that moved.

They'd left the Genii doctor locked in a store-room two levels back, having cut him loose and confiscated his gear. Ronon melted the lock with his blaster and that was sorted. For himself, he'd as soon have shot the guy as left him – what fucking kind of _doctor_ worked for an asshole like Kolya – but Sheppard had said no, and Ronon obeyed. 

This was the last level they could get to without climbing up a shaft. As soon as they came to a big enough alcove, Sheppard motioned for them to stop again. He borrowed Cadman's laptop and pulled up the schematics Rodney had made. “We have a couple of choices from here. If we want to take the same way out that we used coming in, the shaft entrance is right up here, around the next corner. Originally, that was my plan. But we've got one man unconscious already, and I don't think the Sarge is up for much ladder-climbing...”

Coughlin sat slumped against the wall, breathing heavily. Even in the crappy light, he looked pale between the bruises, and sick as a dog. He winced. “Yeah, sorry, guys. I'm crapped out.”

John just nodded. “No shame in that. So we need a different exit route. I'm thinking if we follow this hallway, it leads toward this big space _here_. I propose we follow this hallway to here, then wait. We'll have one of the Jumpers fire off a couple drones – I figure, one _here_ , and one _here_. At the same time, I want you, Simmons, to set off just a couple of the charges you guys set back in the powerplant cavern. This is where most of the main wiring goes, so blow that to start, plus this stair-shaft _here_. That cuts them off from the upper floors, except from within the cavern itself. After that, we bug the fuck out of here. Any questions?” 

None. He tapped his earpiece. “Rodney, heads up. We're coming out the side way, J2 on your map. Need a couple of drones,” he tapped keys briefly, “to hit these two spots. Can do?”

Rodney's voice was clear as a bell. “Can do. Cover your ears, this'll be loud.”

Sitting in the pilot's seat, Rodney grinned. He might not be the greatest pilot, but he was a damn good shot with a drone; only Sheppard scored better in the simulator.

He thought “On”, and the weapons came online. He input his targeting solutions and locked them in. Then he fired two drones, and followed them down with his mind as Laura had taught him. He was able to fine-tune them on the way in. The resulting explosions were magnificent, and sure enough, part of the warren's roof caved in. Moments later there was a huge puff of dust, as part of the powerplant roof collapsed. Not much, but enough to fuck with the Genii's heads and split their forces.

“How's that?”

“Perfect. Keep your eyes open, we're coming out hot, with two wounded.” 

“Will do.” He hovered over the controls, watching as they started to climb out of the rubble. They had two loaded stretchers, so it took a little time to pick a way through.

They were just steps away from the cloaked Jumpers when a couple of stray Genii popped up right in front of Rodney's windscreen and fired off a burst on full auto. Both of them immediately burst into flames, as Cadman attacked – but Sheppard, Garcia, and Simmons went down.

Rodney didn't even think it over. He jumped up, thought the hatch open and came rampaging out the back. All the little threads stood out from his skin. The moment his feet touched the ground, he was surrounded by a bright blue nimbus of flames. The grass beneath his feet caught fire and started to spread, but the flames never touched Rodney.

He half-saw his fellow Lanteans duck and cover; he was too busy. A ball of blue lightning grew between his outstretched hands, spitting and fizzing, throwing off miniature bolts of blue. Very quickly it grew as wide as his outstretched arms, and that was when he threw it, back where the weapons fire had come from.

Screams tore through the air, and Rodney brushed his hands together, smiling unpleasantly. To keep his mind off Sheppard's possible injuries, he started to craft another ball of lightning. Once he saw their people all clear, he tossed it down the opening they'd just crawled out of.

More screams. Then the other Lanteans scrambled on board, including Ronon, now carrying Sheppard, and Simmons with Lt. Park holding him up, and Cadman was helping Garcia, who had a shoulder wound. He couldn't tell where John had been hit.

 _We have to leave, now_. Gritting his teeth and doing the opposite of what he wanted, Rodney thought the rear hatch closed and lifted off from his previous perch. Jumpers Two and Six were right behind him. It took mere moments to arrive at the Gate. Cadman reached out and dialed Atlantis.

“Atlantis, Jumper One. Look out, we're coming in hot!”

“Understood. Come on home, coffee's ready.” 

Rodney grinned. “You just said the magic word!”

There were a whole bunch of Genii milling around the Gate. Rodney just looked over at Cadman. “What do you say, want to help me make some popcorn?”

“ _Hell_ , yeah!” 

Rodney tripped the autopilot to keep them hovering nearby, and concentrated until he could feel the Genii ordnance with his mind. From there it took just moments to start it cooking off. Cadman joined in, and now their grenades were blowing up, too.

The surviving Genii lit out of there like their asses were on fire – huh. _Guess they were, at that_.

 _Assholes. Serves you right_.

*******

John lay in the infirmary bed, fidgeting. There were way too many people milling around in here, and he felt naked without his gear. Scrubs did not cut it. He didn't even have a blade, much less a firearm. It sucked muchly. He reached for the remote, to sit himself more upright – and found it had slid off the covers and hit the floor. He nearly overbalanced and fell after it, then had to weather a spasm of pain and nausea, his body's way of saying, _Fuck you, don't try that again!_

Damn, he hated being in hospital, even this one. He didn't even have a laptop with some DVDs; he was just stuck. And bored. Terribly, terribly bored. Cataclysmically, insanely bored. He was almost bored enough to try getting out of bed – but not quite. He could tell he didn't have the strength. What the fuck happened on the way out? He couldn't remember much, beyond busting his surviving men out of that cell. After that, not so much with the memories.

“Oh come on, Carson! At least let me visit for a while!”

John perked up. That was Rodney! Now he didn't feel bored at all. Sure enough, Rodney shoved the bedside equipment out of the way and dragged a chair over.

“Being lazy again, huh?”

John tried to shrug and ended up regretting it. His right arm was strapped tightly across his chest, and it didn't appreciate being moved. He gritted his teeth and waited for it to pass.

Rodney actually looked embarrassed. Now _there_ was something you didn't see every day.

“Sorry! Hey, I brought you some chocolate pudding, compliments of the kitchen crew. And this,” he pulled a laptop out from behind his back. “And these!” 

Hey, very cool! All of the Die Hard movies and the Back to the Future series. John grinned up at Rodney, his mood instantly improved. “ _Dude_.”

“Dude!” Now both of them were grinning.

“Hey – got any news? Carson won't tell me a damned thing, says he doesn't want me stressed. I'll show him stress if I don't find out what happened!”

Rodney's face grew serious. “Lorne and Coughlin are still alive; Coughlin's out of the woods, but Lorne's gonna be off duty for a while; his wounds were infected and it was touch and go for a while. We lost two guys on the mission, besides our original loss of Reed and Davis. We blew a couple of great big holes in the Genii's warren, and trashed a bunch of crap inside it. Oh yeah -- AR3 found Parrish hiding in a barn on Eruess with a broken leg, so all of our survivors are home now.”

“And Kolya?” His relief at hearing Parrish was safe didn't eclipse his hatred for Kolya one bit.

“Wounded; Taggart got a shot at the last minute, and put one through his shoulder. Dunno if it was a kill shot, but it was the chance we had, so we used it. Hopefully if he survives, he'll at least lose the use of that arm for a while, maybe for good. We ended up not completely destroying their power plant – but we made one hell of a mess, and trashed both their dungeon levels real thoroughly.”

John sighed. He'd been afraid of that. Kolya was a human cockroach; the sonofabitch was amazingly hard to kill. He imagined Kolya's face and swore an oath. _Next time I see you, bang! You're dead_. Still, they'd given him one hell of a bitchslap. And they'd gotten their surviving crew back, and given their dead one hell of a pyrotechnic sendoff. 

_Could have been a lot worse_.

“Hey, that's way better than nothing – and thanks, Rodney. What I do remember is, you did one hell of a good job out there. I think you can come back to the city and finish your training here.” He paused, grinning up at his friend – no. _Be honest, more than a friend. Way the hell more than a friend_. 

Both of them fell silent at once, and they sat just looking at one another for a minute or two. Then Sheppard decided to take the chance, and reached for Rodney's hand.

An expression of mild surprise crossed Rodney's face, followed by the famous crooked grin. “We are on the same wavelength, huh.”

“Yeah, we are. Glad you survived!”

“Glad _you_ did. So, whatcha want to watch first?”

“Whaddaya think, Rodney? Got to be Back to the Future #1.”

Rodney rolled his eyes, but he was laughing inside. It only took a couple minutes to set the laptop up at a comfortable distance, pull his chair around so both of them could see, and start remote. As the first few lines scrolled by he found himself muttering them, utterly horrified to have memorized such a thing. What a waste of perfectly good brain cells.

 _Fuckit. John's alive. I'd watch anything for this_.

As if he'd heard the thought, John looked over at him and grinned. “So, what do you say we investigate this. Proper science demands proof, yeah?”

Rodney grinned right back. “Absolutely. We're gonna need a lot of repeats to prove this one!”

“For science!!”

“For science!!”

**End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe the second SGA story I did? all hail the lady Keira for providing a great space to play in!
> 
> ETA: now with poor Parrish rescued too!


End file.
